Haruno Sakura: The White Lily
by YuriSakura
Summary: AU from just before the start of the Chuunin Exam Onwards. Haruno Sakura realizes she's the weakest link. To what ends will she go to gain strength? How will this affect the future?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Haruno Sakura had always told her friends that her family was not ninja, that she was the first Haruno to become shinobi. Though this was not a lie, it was also not entirely the truth. She was the first Haruno to become shinobi, but other members of her family had once been ninja. The Suiren (lily) clan was an old one, and one her great-great-grandmother, her namesake, was the last of. Like Rock Lee, Suiren Sakura did not have the ability to mould and use chakra. She was the last member of a small clan that had only known power in its youth. With her passing their family secrets fell into the holding of her husband, and were passed down through time as the forbidden holdings of the Haruno clan.

They were sealed in a chest by Suiren Sakura's will hlden for the next member of her blood that held the ability of a shinobi. It was a seal that had killed many who had attempted to open it since, grandsons and granddaughters, cousins and nieces and nephews. Enough died from trying it that it had been locked away in the Haruno clan house behind locks and bars, traps and pits so that none might try it again.

None did. Thick layers of dust built up over everything and it was all but forgotten. Haruno Sakura though remembered; she remembered because her grandmother had told her of the chest, and because she possessed one of the elusive traits of the long lost Suiren. Haruno Sakura had the eidetic memory of that lost clan, once told something, or once she had read it she never forgot.

It had taken Sakura two hours to work through the protections that had guarded the chest, but after the events in Wave Country she would not let mere time dissuade her. Naruto, Sasuke they had both been so strong back when they fought Zabuza, and later Haku. She was tired of being the smart but weak one. Tired of being 'forehead girl' the one that everyone else attacked, or in a few rare cases protected.

She would gain the strength to be the protector rather than the protected even if it killed her.

So far it had not even come close. The traps had been good, but had not truly be designed to stop a determined ninja. Though Sakura was not the best fighter, or the best ninjutsu artist in the academy she was one of the best planners when she bent her mind to the task. It had taken time and a lot of kawarimi to get through the traps, and Sakura was exhausted.

It had worked though. Now all she had to do was open the chest.

"A blood seal." Sakura recognized the way the chest had been sealed. They had covered them in class. It was a blood seal, and she also knew it was something else. A retribution seal to kill those that tried to open it that were not of the blood.

Sakura worried her lower lip with her teeth trying to decide now whether or not to continue on or turn back. The voice inside her head, her 'inner' self was strangely silent right now. Normally it would be egging her on, and its silence was disturbing.

Sakura suddenly came to a decision, and before she even realized she had moved her thumb was burning from the bite of her teeth. The bloodied hand slammed down on the seal as her left hand made the half ram seal.

"Kai!"

The release of the seal was anti-climatic. The chest simply fell apart in a flash of smoke to reveal the contents. That was something that Sakura was not expecting, and she had been expecting more in the chest itself as well.

There were three scrolls, some very old clothing, and six dozen polished metal objects about the size and shape of a water lily pad. Still this was what Sakura had came for, and bare minimum or not, she was not going to leave without it. She carefully put away the clothing into her pack and left as silently as she came.

Sakura decided she would stop by a tailor before reviewing the scrolls the first step to claiming her ancient heritage was looking the part.

&&&&

'Family Jutsu of the Suiren Clan' the scrolls were labeled, along with a stark kanji for one, two, and three. It was obvious which scroll was meant to be opened and it did not take genius for Sakura to do just what was indicated.

'The basis of the Suiren Clan techniques is the division of the self that is, and that self that could be. These are commonly known as the conscious and the unconscious minds. The one that is two.' Sakura nodded softly to herself. The unconscious mind was often known as the suppressed mind. It was what controlled the instincts, the body when it was asleep, and often came forth in times of great stress. She continued to read to find out just how that could be used in a family technique.

'The Suiren which the clan named after is composed of that which is seen the flower and the leaf, and that which is hidden by the water the stem, and the root. The whole of which is the plant that gives, or takes life. So to the family techniques combine the shown and the hidden. Suiren becomes the two that are one.' Sakura read that over a second time trying to understand the meaning in the words. To look underneath the underneath as Kakashi-sensei had taught her. It sounded like it meant that the Suiren would somehow combine the conscious and the unconscious minds into a single force.

Sakura grinned as she continued, seeing that she had indeed saw successfully below the surface. 'The first step of the Suiren technique combines the mind that is, with the mind that could be into a self imposed whole. No longer will the minds be split and at odds with each other they will work together towards all goals. The mind will be whole. The Suiren family are suited for this merging because the mind that could be is unusually strong, close to the surface, and easily merged.' Sakura smiled again as her inner self loomed large in her mind and raised a fist to the sky while shouting "Yatta!". There had to be a drawback, and indeed there was.

'Unfortunately the mind is not meant to forever be two that are one. It was designed and meant to be one that is two. Towards this end it is necessary for those who undertake the technique to learn a second, that of the artificial splitting of the mind, the Crease. After merging and while in the Crease no non-family genjutsus will ever be able to affect the user, nor shall the user be able to utilize any non-family genjutsu.' Sakura frowned as the first jutsu in the scroll was not the merging of the minds but that for imposing the Crease. It was not a hard jutsu just a minor C ranked self-healing persistent genjutsu, which required a mirror.

Sakura practiced the seals for a long time. She had to make sure she could cast this correctly before she went on to the next step. In fact the scroll would not open up any farther as it was, and Sakura hypothesized that it was because she had to cast it correctly before she could move on to the next step.

The self cast genjutsu explained part of the metal weapons she found though. Their burnished faces could be used as mirrors on the battlefield. If the Suiren family techniques had more self genjutsu then there would be a need for mirrors on the battlefield. Their shape made sense now as well taking it from the flower that the family was named after. The edges were currently dulled, but had obviously once held an edge. How they were used without any visible handle was something that Sakura still did not understand. Hopefully that would be explained as the scroll continued.

It was only an hour before her normal time of going to bed before she felt confident in using the new genjutsu. She stepped into the bathroom and looked into the mirror. Her hands flashed through the seals and she stared into her reflections eyes as she finished the last one.

"Suiren Family Technique, self-genjutsu Crease of the Mind!" Sakura started as she heard her voice, because she had not spoken. Her reflection smirked for an instant as she realized its mouth had moved before she fell to the floor in a heap.

&&&&&

Morning. It had to be morning. The birds were singing, there was sunlight streaming through the window, and though she could not remember how she got there she was in bed. Sakura could tell it was early, much earlier than she normally got up. Kakashi had said they were going to meet at nine today, and right now it was maybe five forty-five barely past sunrise.

Sakura could not hear her parents moving around right now, which gave credence to the early morning hour. They were usually up for an hour or two before she woke herself getting ready for their jobs. This was new, and she did not really understand why she wanted to start the day right now. Get a shower in and start learning new things from the scroll.

The scroll, the genjutsu she cast last night before bed. It all came rushing back to Sakura. The scroll was still open on the floor where she had been reading it at the foot of her futon. She was sleeping in the nude, something she had always wanted to do, but had never gotten the nerve up to try. The genjutsu that created the 'Crease', and doing something she had never done before suddenly fit together as if they were a puzzle. The 'Crease' was actually the method by which the minds were integrated!

Sakura pushed out of bed and made her way into the bathroom. The first thing she noticed in the mirror was the fact that she had seemingly gained ten pounds of muscle overnight, to the detriment of the softness she once had in her belly and in the flare of her hips.

'Kami, I look even more like a boy now.' Sakura groaned as she looked in the mirror turning this way and that as she took in the rather muscular figure she had morphed into. The stomach was not bad as she feared being that it was now flat, trim, narrow. In fact even without the extra pounds she used to have on her hips it made them look wider than they had been. Still the extra muscle in her arms and back made her look like a freak.

Sakura shook her head and slipped into the shower. Freak though it looked she felt more powerful than she ever had in the past. It was easier to breath and she moved smoother than she ever had in the past. Maybe this wasn't such a bad thing Sakura decided.

Refreshed by the shower she made her way back into her room wrapped in a robe. Sakura immediately settled in by the scroll while she continued to dry her hair.

'Successful completion of the 'Crease' genjutsu the first time will result in several changes to the user. There will be a period of unconsciousness when the mind that could be will craft the body into that the use truly desires. This might take a period of several days, months or even years to complete in some cases. Minor changes will be evident almost immediately.' Sakura growled at that. This was the body she wanted? There was no way that could be true. She looked like some butch freak.

Sasuke would not like the way she looked now. Sakura thought about that for a moment before she realized that she did not feel the crushing blow that would have once been to her. So what if the brooding Uchiha that would not give her the time of day liked the way she looked or not? He had never expressed an interest in her, and truthfully she forgot exactly why she had started to pursue him. It had been the thing to do at the time, go along with the crowd, and what had it cost her? Perhaps her best friend.

"I am not going to let him rule my life again. Ino's my friend, and I'm going to get her back." Sakura gave a nod as she voiced her promise to herself. It was going to be difficult to prove to Ino that she meant it, but she would do so no matter what the cost. Even if it meant throwing away her chance at Sasuke, not that she wanted that chance much anymore. Sakura snorted and turned her attention back to the scroll.

'The 'Crease' has many levels of release. Normally when not training or asleep the genjutsu that was cast to establish it drains a very small amount of chakra to keep itself active. To decrease the level of seperation one molds a specific amount of chakra and with the seal of the Ram disperses part of the genjutsu with a simple Kai. To completely disperse the genjutsu this will need to be done four times.' Sakura frowned as she followed along. She was in a genjutsu right now? It did not feel like she was in one, but then again the best genjutsu were the ones that integrated flawlessly with reality.

'The levels correspond to not only greater integration to the artificially split minds, but to the unlocking of increased physical and mental abilities. The first level corresponds to 'clarity of the mind'. The user is able to think faster and more clearly than ever before as unwanted and unneeded doubts are cast aside. The truth of self and of others are revealed. The second stage of release allows the body to be used to its fullest extent. Unconscious controls on muscles and speed are discarded. The third level unlocks the full potential of the mind's control of the body. The heart pumps or does not pump as the mind wills, pain and fatigue are mere memories. The final stage of release is to be avoided if at all possible. The locks and fetters of the mind are discarded and the full potential of its power is realized. Know that the further release that is required the greater the chakra usage and control must be.'

Sakura mulled that over. It appeared that the scroll was attempted to indicate that the mind was the source of all powers for the Suiren family techniques, the stronger the will the stronger the ninja.

'The hidden techniques of the Suiren are weapon techniques. They require excellent to perfect chakra control to use as well as the release of the first two levels of the 'Crease'. The pads are your weapons and their control will be by the string of either wire or chakra. There use is a dance. The first dance is the 'Dance of the floating Lily' and uses one pad.' Sakura felt her smile widen as she continued reading ravenously through the scroll. Here was where it was getting good. She still did not know what the first genjutsu did but here was a skill that obviously built upon it.

&&&&&

Sakura was almost late to the morning meeting, meaning that she had gotten there right when Kakashi said they were to meet. Like usual the jonin instructor was nowhere to be seen. Sakura knew it would probably be noon before he showed up but she did not like being late herself.

"Oi, Sakura-chan!" Naruto called out gleefully as she walked closer to the pair of boys. Both were looking at her strangely, and she felt her anger rising as they stared.

"What the hell is your problem!" Sakura shouted glaring at both of them. Naruto seemed to take it in stride, but Sasuke seemed rather surprised. She suddenly realized he would be since she had always doted on his word before. About time the stuck up bastard to a hit on the side of the head. Maybe he would look up and pay attention to something other than himself.

"Ano… Sakura-chan you look different." Naruto hesitantly replied.

Of course she looked different. Sakura had taken the time to stop by the tailor on the way to the training ground and had found he had finished the first of a dozen new outfits. Gone was the red and white dress and in its place was instead rather traditional shinobi clothing.

It was a one piece suit of gray. Though the wrists, ankles and neck bore tightly to skin, the rest was fairly loose to allow easy movement. Sakura thought it was a little plain, even with the white Lily pad emblem on the back but it made her look, serious. It was something that had felt right the moment she had looked in the mirror. In addition to the kunai holster hung from the belt, she had three of the lily knives complete with ninja wire and control rings.

"Oh, you like my new look?" Sakura gave Naruto a smile before looking to Sasuke. He was the strongest one here, and she wanted him to help her get better. "Ne Sasuke could we train while we wait for Kakashi-sensei?"

"Ehh." Sasuke turned away in what had to be a refusal. Sakura glared at him for a long time contemplating how it would feel to belt him upside the head. Maybe he just needed a physical reminder of just which was the stronger gender.

"Ano Sakura-chan I'll train with you!"

Sakura stared at the shorter, blonde haired member of their team for a few silent moments. Her mind was clear, and for the first time she could remember she actually studied him. She knew he was strong, he had defeated Haku after Sasuke had fell. He had been a key part of the attack that had freed Kakashi sensei. More importantly she suddenly realized was his ability to use Kage Bunshin, and a lot of them.

"Sure Naruto, just let me set a couple rules ok?" Sakura noticed his face fell a bit but she tugged him over by his sleeve and out into the open part of the training ground. "First no thrown weapons, second you can only attack me with your clones you have to stay here, and third you've got to wait until I say we can start ok?"

"Why?" Naruto asked looking confused.

"I've got a new technique I want to practice Naruto. It is a weapon technique, and I'm just learning it." Sakura left out that it was a technique she had just read about a couple hours ago in a scroll and had never actually used it before. "Two clones for now? And please Naruto I need to practice so don't go all out."

"A new technique? Sure I'll help!" Naruto gave a nod as he did his signature technique. "You guys know what Sakura wants, so make sure Sakura gets it!"

Sakura slipped her right hand through the control ring for one of the lily knives and let the ninja wire that connected the two hang loose. She lifted the knife up before her face with her left hand as she looked into the reflection of the eyes.

"KAI!" Sakura released the chakra she had gathered with the word and suddenly it seemed like she was looking at a different person. Her reflection was so calm, so collected and with a determination that shone in her jade eyes.

Sakura looked up at the two Naruto clones and started to channel chakra into the ring, and down the wire to the blade. A seal began to glow on the broad weapon, and the wire drew out in a tight stiff bow.

Sakura launched the blade with a flick of the wrist, much like throwing a kunai, and then started the prescribed motions of the control ring. At the end of the wire the heavy blade was much like a kite. More muscle was required to keep it moving, but to change the direction of the chakra lightened weapon only the lightest movement of the wrist was needed.

"Come at me."

Naruto's clones did, and for a moment Sakura knew fear. They were coming at her in way that Naruto had never come at her before. Sakura suddenly realized he was taking her seriously. A grin spread across her face as she whipped the weapon back and took out one of the two clones.

"Sakura-chan, you're good at this! You sure this is a new technique?" Naruto complained before poofing in another clone without having to be asked and sending it after her.

Sakura grinned in reply as she twitched the blade back, the wire slicing through another clone. That was interesting, the wire could be used as a weapon too. She narrowed her eyes as she continued the training losing track of time, and not noticing that Sasuke was watching as well Sharingan whirling madly.

&&&&&

"Yo." Kakashi's arrival was a surprise to all three but neither Naruto nor Sakura was going to let him by.

"You're late!" The both screamed in unison, the training forgotten as Sakura pulled the lily blade in.

"I was walking on a sidewalk filled with cracks, and I couldn't dare break my mother's back." Kakashi waved off the protest as both gennin continued to glare at him.

Neither knew that Kakashi had been observing them from the beginning, he always did. Being late allowed the jounin to observe them working together, or not working together when he was not around. It let him see them face of adversity.

Or so he told himself.

Truthfully he had not wanted to pass them, but the council had its fingers in everything and Sasuke had to be a genin, and he had to be on Kakashi's squad because of the Sharingan. At least the chunnin exams might finally get this problem off his hands. Kakashi liked the three, but he just wasn't a teacher. He never would be a teacher.

That had been made pointedly obvious by the sudden change in Sakura. He had never seen this coming, and had not realized she had that much hidden talent. She was fast, fluid, and her control over the chakra laced wire and blades had been perfect.

Not only that but his experienced eye had noted that she moved with more strength and purpose than he had ever seen in her before. It was as if someone had taken Sakura and replaced her with an idealized version of her. Kakashi narrowed his eye as he looked at her, deciding that he did need to press this point.

"Sasuke, Naruto go spar." Kakashi put enough command in his voice that they did not argue but backed away out of listening range to do so. He had already put forward Team 7 for the chunnin exams and he needed to make sure that whatever Sakura had done did not endanger herself or the team as a whole.

"Sakura just where did you learn that?" Kakashi asked being rather blunt in his question. It was a skill he had never seen before.

"A scroll Kakashi-sensei."

Kakashi thought about that for an instant. It was obvious that the girl was telling the truth, but not the whole truth. It did not matter her getting this strong this fast meant that she had gotten access to a family technique scroll, and the family techniques that could be used by others were often harmful to them.

"Sakura, it was a family technique scroll was it not?" Kakashi waited until she gave a nod before continuing. "Family techniques can be very dangerous for non-family members to use."

"But, I am family. It was my great-great-grandmother's family techniques." Sakura looked up at Kakashi as she let him into the secret. "The Suiren clan. Besides the base technique is the dangerous one, and unfortunately I have already done it."

Kakashi listened as Sakura filled him in on the events of the evening before, her change in the morning, and her thoughts on the matter. The more he learned the more worried he got. The physical changes weren't too worrying as what she described was well within the possibilities of ninja techniques but the method which they were obtained was setting off alarm bells in his head.

"Genjutsu that are cast upon the self and that act upon the users mind to remove sub-conscious barriers are very dangerous Sakura." Kakashi could not believe the girl had done this without seeking outside aid. Then again she tended towards wild swings in mood and personality far more so than the average teen girl. Rin had never been that bad. It was easy to believe that it was a very minor bloodline ability that the Suiren family techniques were built around. He raised his voice as he called out. "Sasuke, Naruto you will train together for three hours and then break for the day. I'm taking Sakura with me."

Kakashi ignored their protests; it was rather easy with the treasure of literature in his hands. He chuckled now and again at the subtle interplay of puns and characters. The man was a genius. Sure it was porn but it was well written porn!

The sudden surge of killing intent let him know that they had reached his destination. With a sigh Kakashi tucked away the precious Icha Icha novel and looked up at the red-eyed woman who was trying to kill him with her stare.

"Yo." As greetings went Kakashi thought it was best to keep things short and succinct, and a yo did that better than anything else. Besides his fingers were busy telling Kurenai exactly what she needed to know without having anyone else overhear. ANBU sign language was good for that.

"Team, we're breaking for lunch. Meet back at the Hokage tower in two hours and we'll pick up a mission then." Kurenai waited for them to move off before rounding on Kakashi again. This time he shuddered a little at the stare that she was leveling on him. "How the hell could you let this happen! Self-genjutsu are kinjutsu and yet you let one be used by a genin!"

"Its not like I had a hand in it Kurenai. She found the scroll in the family vault. As soon as I figured out how bad it was, I brought her straight here to see you." Kakashi motioned over to Sakura. "So how bad is it?"

"How can it be bad? The technique was a simple D ranked impulse masking technique!" Sakura growled looking from one to the other.

It took a moment for the genjutsu specialist to run through a series of seals before whispering the name of the jutsu under her breath. Kakashi began to get worried as Kurenai frowned thoughtfully as she looked at Sakura.

"Well, she was telling the truth. She is in a genjutsu, and other genjutsu does not work on her. As for all she says it did." Kurenai frowned slightly as she really looked at the other girl. "I need to know the seals."

"Show her Sakura." Kakashi leveled his glare on his student and the pink haired kunoichi failed to shrink back as she would have just days ago.

The seals were made slowly and Kakashi could have done it afterwards even without the Sharingan eye. Twenty seals, that was a fairly long string for something that Sakura seemed to think was a D level genjutsu.

"Hrm, she is right though, that is a D rank genjutsu. Plenty of control, very little power, lots of precision." Kurenai was mumbling to herself and Kakashi kept his ear open. The genjutsu mistress had a habit of letting fall little tidbits of information as she talked to herself. "When you woke this morning did you notice anything different in the way you felt or acted?"

"No." Sakura said bluntly and Kakashi was taken a bit aback.

"Kakashi?"

"Sakura is blunter today than she has been in the past. Her mood swings aren't as wild, but she is more confident and aggressive." Kakashi paused for a moment before deciding to continue. "I have to say I believe that she is telling the truth about the integration."

"If she is, then the worst has already passed. She's still alive, and if it hadn't gone right she'd be dead." Kurenai looked over at Sakura before she continued. "Genjutsu that acts upon the mind of the caster are very dangerous Sakura. Even the smallest flutter of will, of chakra, or of a seal can make them go horribly wrong. I won't ask you to reveal family secrets to me, but I strongly suggest that before you use any other of the family genjutsu techniques that you come to discuss them with me."

"Yes." Sakura's voice was sullen, a tone that Kakashi had rarely heard from her. Kakashi watched as Sakura met the other woman's eyes steadily before giving a shrug of her shoulders. "This was the only genjutsu technique in the first scroll, and the scroll advises that I have to reach the third level of release before being able to move on to the second. Besides there are four weapons dances that I need to learn before I continue on."

"Four?" Kakashi looked at his weakest student, the word shocked from his lips. The first was impressive enough, and though it depended more upon chakra control than anything else it would be an impressive mid-ranged technique when she mastered it.

"Yes there is the Dance of the Floating Lily, the Dance of the Giant Lily, the Dance of the Choking Lily, and finally the Dance of the White Lily."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Training most of the day for two days straight with Naruto was an enlightening experience. Sakura had always accepted the common view that the orange loving genin was the dead last of the Academy. Just because something was accepted did not mean it was true.

Sakura rapidly found out it was not because he lacked drive, nor the lack of potential. It was because he lacked the fundamentals, and that nobody outside Iruka had ever attempted to teach him. It was also obvious that there were certain things his clones could learn that would pass on to the original upon their 'death'.

Sakura with the use of her first stage of release and from her eidetic memory could learn things incredibly quickly. She had a clarity of thought, and a rapidity of the mind that let her think up new strategies on the fly and to adapt to new situations faster than she had ever been able to in the past. Yet, she was still barely able to keep up with the growth that Naruto was going through in their training.

Pointing out after the first day that his clones could learn how an enemy thought, die, implant that information upon him so that he could come up with new strategies would have been a mistake if he was not on her team. As it was she had a hard time as seeing it as the boon it was. Sure she was getting stronger, but he was getting stronger at an even faster rate. The gap between them was rapidly growing. If she had not been the cause for that growth Sakura would have hated it.

Instead of dwelling on the fact that he was getting better faster she concentrated on the fact that his increase in growth meant she was improving faster as well. Which was why Sakura implanted a new training system on their third day of practice. She had spent several hours last night thinking about things.

Naruto's biggest weaknesses were his inability to plan ahead, his poor chakra control, lack of techniques, and his rough and tumble taijutsu. Out of the three the last one really did not matter, not when he had three hundred clones to swamp you with. Besides taijutsu was muscle memory and Sakura couldn't believe that the clones would pass that along. The first weakness was already being addressed in their training. Why think things through when you could come up with a plan, immediately implement it and see the results? With his Kage Bunshin Naruto could try attacking a hundred different ways without having to worry about getting killed in one of them.

Chakra control though that was something they could work on easily while Naruto sparred with her. It was also something that appeared to get better with the Kage Bunshin practicing it. Otherwise he would not have improved so quickly with the Bunshin and Kawarimi prior to their mission to Wave.

"But Sakura-chan I already know how to climb trees with my chakra." Naruto had an adverse reaction to everything he found boring Sakura had noticed and a lot of the grunt work of training was well, boring.

"I know, Kakashi-sensei taught me the same time he taught you now didn't he?" Sakura waited for the blonde's nod before she continued. "And why was I able to climb the tree so easily compared to you and Sasuke? And why did he teach us the ability?"

Sakura ignored the urge to look over at the bridge where Sasuke was brooding. She knew he was watching the training Naruto and her were doing before Kakashi showed up. There was not anything she could do about it except to stop training though. That was two or three hours wasted every day, and they only had another five days counting today before the chuunin exams. There was no time to waste.

"Ano… Kakashi-sensei said you had incredible chakra control!" Naruto exclaimed after a moment of thought. "He wanted us to get better at controlling our chakra, and for you to increase your reserves!"

"Exactly. Climbing trees might not increase your chakra reserves, and it might only barely increase your control. Still if you make a hundred Kage Bunshin and climb the tree a hundred times your control will get better." Sakura said as she looked at her teammate. His face was scrunched up as he thought that over before he gave her a brilliant smile and a nod. "I wish we knew another exercise, but we don't. I haven't been able to find one in the library either."

"Sakura-chan, what are you going to be doing while I climb trees?" Naruto seemed concerned that she was just going to abandon him, so Sakura thumped him on the back of the head.

"While you and as many Kage Bunshin as you can make climb trees, I'm going to be sparring with more clones of course." Sakura grinned at Naruto. "Two today please, and I think that they shall be able to use thrown weapons today as well. Nothing but practice weapons though."

Sakura noticed Naruto still did not seem pleased about climbing trees until Kakashi arrived, so she decided it would not hurt to sweeten the pot. He was after all the only person who was willing to train with her, and for almost all day as well. Sasuke disappeared after their group training sessions, and though she wanted to reconnect with Ino she wanted to do that as an equal.

"If you stop complaining and start training I'll treat you to ramen at Ichiraku's after." Sakura tried not to think how badly that was going to hurt the pocketbook. Still she had the payment for the mission to Wave country in the bank, and though Naruto ate like nothing she had ever seen before it would still not make a dent in that.

"Kage Bunshin!" Naruto cried suddenly more than enthused by her offer. Sakura blanched at the sudden influx of orange clad genin, who began charging up any and all available trees.

"Ready Sakura-chan!"

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, Sakura decided as she channeled chakra into the wire and the weapon.

&&&&&

"Yo." Kakashi had been watching the two 'weakest' members of his team train for a little over two hours now. He had thought that Sakura would give it up after the first day, especially after he had to carry her home that first night. She had passed out from exhaustion after having sparred Naruto for another six hours after the lunch break.

He was glad that Gai had not seen the pair so far. That would be something he could live without. Having his self proclaimed rival spout on about the fires of youth of Gai's genin team was bad enough, having him do it about Kakashi's students would be even worse.

"You're late!" The doubled cry from Sakura and Naruto was accompanied by a sudden dispersal of all the clones. The training ground was suddenly wreathed in smoke. Kakashi did not miss how Naruto stumbled and clutched his head with a groan. Obviously Sakura had not seen the obvious drawback to training with so many Kage Bunshin.

"Mmm…. I had to save an orphanage from a flood." Kakashi grinned at his students as they simply looked at him in disbelief. It was so amusing to provoke people. "I think that while we wait for Naruto to recover you and Sasuke will spar Sakura. No ninjutsu outside the academy basics."

Naruto was obviously not in any shape to continue and Kakashi was glad that the other two genin simply nodded at his request. He would teach them something new after Naruto recovered. It probably would not take more than a half hour at most. Tree climbing was a good entry exercise for chakra control, but every one of his students was beyond it now. Besides after this spar Sasuke was going to be rather upset, and it would be necessary to mollify him with a new ability.

It would be good for Sasuke to learn the limits of his ability, Kakashi thought as he watched the two genin move into the training field. It would also be good for Sakura to measure just how much she had advanced against someone who had not been constantly sparring against her.

"Naruto, make ten Kage Bunshin and spread them out to watch this fight." Kakashi would never have told Naruto that he could use his clones to train like this. There was a reason that the technique was A rank. Still since the genin already knew it, and already knew that it could give him additional information there was no longer any reason to stop training him in its use as an information gathering tool.

Naruto groaned and did as he was asked, still rubbing his forehead as he did so. Kakashi could not blame him overloading the brain by dispelling too many clones at once could cause a powerful migraine. Still Naruto would have to learn that on his own. Kakashi was only willing to give so many clues the rest was up to them to learn on their own.

The fight started almost immediately after Naruto distributed his clones. Though Kakashi still had his Icha Icha book out, he was not really paying attention to it. Being a ninja meant more than just looking underneath the underneath, you also had to live it. Good ninja cloaked themselves in a layer of the obvious making who they were and what they were really doing harder to see.

Kurenai was still learning that. Anko, Gai, Asuma, and Kakashi were all masters of the art. The problem being is that after a time you actually started living your cover story. A pervert that read erotica in public, well live that cover long enough and it became part of who you were. It was the reason why there were so many 'interesting' shinobi in a village.

The fight was going much like Kakashi had anticipated. Every second that it dragged on one person was getting more and more control over how it progressed. Every second the other was becoming angrier, more frustrated, and likely to commit what would be outside training a fatal error.

Sasuke was going to lose.

A week ago Kakashi would have said that it would be impossible for that to happen. With the Sharingan eye finally activated, and his prowess in taijutsu Sasuke would have been Kakashi's favorite in the fight. Now after a scant three days of training Sakura was showing Sasuke just what the weakness of the first stage of the Sharingan was.

It could see fast movement. It would even show in a limited scope how everything would move dependent upon pure physical laws and abilities. What it could not see and predict were things too small for its focus, and items being manipulated by chakra. The wire was invisible to Sasuke, and the blade was all but impossible to predict.

Sasuke had already fallen into the trap that plagued the Uchiha. He was relying upon his kekkei genkai instead of his training. Unable to predict the blade with his eyes, or watch the movements of the wire he was now madly dashing to and fro in an attempt to avoid them. Just a month ago he would not have even worried about that lack and instead moved to neutralize the source of the attack with thrown weapons.

Kunai sparked as it impacted the convex edge of the lily knife. Sasuke charged finally heading directly at Sakura in an attempt to take the fight to her. It was far too late though. Kakashi giggled a little as a quick Kawarimi with her blade put Sakura behind Sasuke. The wire suddenly tightened as she jerked the control loop, and without waiting for Sasuke's reaction she pulled several kunai from her pouch in anticipation of a throw.

"Hold!" Kakashi stepped forwards. He looked between the calm faced girl and the enraged boy and sighed. "Tell me Naruto what did Sasuke do wrong?"

"Sasuke-teme underestimated Sakura-chan." Naruto fidgeted a bit before he gave a nod. "He should have planned what he was going to do outside the range of her weapon. He's better with thrown weapons than I am, so he should have attacked her from outside her range with them."

"Good. Always know the range of your opponent, and if you can fight them where they are weak. Sakura's weapon is strong in mid-range. It can't reach you outside the length of the wire, and inside her arm reach it is as dangerous to her as it is you." Kakashi paused and turned to Sakura. "Now Sakura what did Sasuke do wrong?"

"He relied upon his Sharingan instead of his training."

Kakashi nearly groaned. It was the truth, but he wished that Sakura could have been who Sakura was for just a moment and phrased it in a less controversial way. It was the truth, and there was just a bit of doubt in Sasuke's eyes before he huffed and turned away from the group.

"Now that that is out of the way, we'll get to training." Kakashi walked over to the small pond in the training area trusting the others to follow. He continued out onto it without a pause. "Today you will be learning water walking. Like tree climbing you focus your chakra into your feet, but instead of pulling yourself to the tree you push yourself away from the water."

"Yosh! This will be a piece of cake!" Naruto yelled and stepped off the end of the short pier only to plunge immediately into the water. Kakashi smiled at him for a moment before he continued as if the interruption had not even happened.

"Compared to tree climbing this will take ten times the chakra control. You not only have to mould a set amount of chakra you much do it constantly and balance against the movement of your body and the water." Kakashi finished up his explanation. He looked amongst the three before giving them an eye smile. "You can stop training for today when you can either walk upon the water, or you have trained for six hours."

Kakashi watched as Sasuke stepped out off the pier and joined Naruto sputtering in the water. This was going to take both boys sometime to figure out, but he was more interested in Sakura. Her chakra training had always been very, very good. If Tsunade had still been in the village Sakura would probably have gained status as a genin level medic-nin by now.

"Very good Sakura. If you want you can go now." Kakashi was not surprised that she had gotten it on the first try. Her control had improved leaps and bounds in the past few days, building on her already substantial ability. If she could get past the initial part of the chuunin exams and increase her reserves enough in the month before the finals she might even be a contender.

"I promised Naruto I'd buy him Ramen after we trained Kakashi. I'll stay until he is done."

"Good you can supervise then." With those words and a swirl of leaves Kakashi disappeared.

&&&&&

Naruto was dripping water, and his stomach was growling constantly. He was also tired more so than he ever remembered being in his life even including after the tree climbing marathon in Wave Country. Still he had beat Sasuke-teme in figuring out how to do water walking thanks to Sakura and the trick she had taught him with the clones.

Two hundred clones and two hours worth of work had paid off. Sakura had even suggested dispersing them after the first hour, which had been as far as Naruto was concerned, a stroke of genius. He had known what he was doing wrong then and though it still had not been easy to correct it ten minutes after dispersing another set of clones he had it down perfect. Now he was going to have ramen with Sakura, a date!

"Date, date, date!" Naruto chanted walking along side her not realizing until she spoke that he had messed up internal and external dialogue again.

"This is not a date Naruto-baka!" Sakura punctuated her words with a fist to the back of his head.

Naruto felt all the happiness he had drain away with those words. Sakura had changed a lot in the past couple days since they had returned from wave. She had been training with him, had stopped following Sasuke-teme around, and had finally started treating Naruto as something other than a constant bother. She had even complimented him a couple times. Naruto had thought that maybe, just maybe she had started to feel something different towards him, had begun to acknowledge him.

"Naruto…" Sakura trailed off, no doubt noticing the faltering of his smile. He tried to turn it back on to show that nothing was wrong, but wasn't fast enough. "Naruto, I don't think I'll ever go on a date with you."

"Oh." Naruto almost tripped over a crack in the road. His ever present smiling mask slipping again.

"Besides I'd much rather go have ramen with you as a friend. I don't have many."

That was a tone of voice that Naruto recognized. It was one that he had heard many times when he talked with himself, or with Iruka-sensei. Sakura's words were also true he knew. She had as many friends as he did, which had never made sense to him. Then again he had never understood why the villagers hated him until he was told about the Kyuubi.

"Sakura-chan you, you really mean that?" Naruto was not sure what he thought. He felt bad that Sakura did not want to make this a date, but on the other hand she had just asked if she could be his friend instead. There really was not anyone his age he could call a friend.

"Yeah, I really mean it Naruto." Sakura replied and Naruto could hear the slight hesitancy in her voice that had been in his own. "We're teammates and Ninja are supposed to harden their hearts, but Kakashi was friends with his and I'd like to be yours."

"Friends it is then!" Naruto exclaimed. He slid into his signature seat at Ichiraku's and waved to the proprietor and his daughter. "Teuchi-san, Ayami-chan, I want you to meet my teammate and friend, Sakura-chan!"

"We're already met her Naruto, but its good to hear that you've made a new friend." Ayami smiled at him and Naruto scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. He had forgotten the team had eaten at Ichiraku's before. "What will it be?"

"Two large miso with extra pork." Sakura cut in before Naruto could reply. "I'm buying but I'm not letting you get ten bowls."

"Hai, hai." Naruto groused before giving her another grin. "So Sakura, I've been wondering how did you get so strong?"

"A family technique."

"Oh." Naruto's spirits fell again at her answer. A family technique he should have guessed. Once again being an orphan was working against him. He covered his fault once again with a smile noticing that Sakura did not buy it again. "Well I'll help you train and get strong Sakura-chan!"

"Mmm. I was thinking about your training today Naruto." Sakura's words perked him up again. She was thinking about his training? The last time she had given him a hint he had learned the trick about the Kage Bunshin, and that was doing wonders. He was getting better at chakra control an incredible rate, and had finally mastered the Kawarimi and normal Bunshin. "I think that like with your chakra control you can use your Kage Bunshin to quickly train new ninjutsu techniques."

"I can train ninjutsu like that?" Naruto frowned as he thought about it. In way it made sense. He had gotten a lot better really fast with the normal Bunshin, Henge, and Kawarimi once he had learned the Kage Bunshin. He had thought it was because learning the harder skill made easier stuff simple, but that was obviously not true.

"Yep, you might not learn things as fast as the Sharingan eye can copy them but you'll probably be able to learn ninjutsu faster than anyone else in our class." Sakura looked over to Naruto while the bowls of ramen were set in front of them. "It might not be a kekkei genkai or a family technique, but the Kage Bunshin combined with you monster chakra reserves will act a lot like them. Plus since your clones can use ninjutsu, you could use them in coordinated attacks."

"Itadakimasu!" Naruto cried and dug into the noodles before him.

Eating also let him think about Sakura's revelation. If it were true well then he would be able to catch up to Sasuke-teme. Sasuke might always be able to beat him in a one on one match, but with several clones and more than the basic academy jutsu. Hell, he realized, even with the basic jutsu he should be able to win a fight. Naruto fought Sasuke head on all the time and never thought to use Henge, Bunshin, or Kawarimi on him.

"Where am I going to find ninjutsu techniques though? I don't have family scrolls, and I can't ask you for yours." Naruto looked over to Sakura wondering if she had even thought of that.

"The library of course."

&&&&&

The library had always been a sanctuary for Sakura, and became more so when she had started her rivalry with Ino over Sasuke. It was quiet, it held knowledge, and best of all very few people her age ever showed up there. Shikamaru, Shino and Hinata were the only ones from class that she had seen here on a regular basis.

Naruto it appeared had possibly never been here before.

"Wow, so many scrolls…" Naruto's harsh whisper filled the empty halls. Stacks and lines of shelves held thousands of scrolls. Dust filled the air and with it the smell of paper and ink.

"The library of Konoha. This is where Sarutobi gained the power to become the Sandaime Hokage." Sakura stepped further into the building leading Naruto through the stacks. The librarian did not even bother to look at them, the old woman had a third sense though that kicked in whenever someone tried to take a scroll, and there were ANBU at her beck and call. Sakura had seen the jutsu branch, which they were now heading for, but had never thought to enter.

"Ojisan… really?"

"Yeah, they call him the 'Professor' because he learned all of Konoha's non-family jutsu. Most of them from scrolls here in the library." Sakura had heard the story firsthand from one of the assistant librarians. The old man did not work here anymore but he used to love talking about what he had done in the past.

"Yeah! I'll read all the scrolls too and then I'll become stronger than ojisan! I'll be hokage in no time!"

Sakura slammed her fist into the back of his head. She was going to teach him manners even if she had to hammer them down with her knuckles.

"Quiet in the library baka!" Sakura hissed at him. He rubbed his head and nodded an apology. "Besides you'll have to learn everything slowly. There are a lot of things here that can help you in your dream but you have to understand them, not just memorize them."

The jutsu room was a lot smaller than the library in general. It also had an ANBU guard right at the door. Though the jutsu were open for all of genin rank or higher to study and attempt as open scrolls they were still prone to theft. Rival villages attempted to steal skills from other villages all the time, and the easiest way was through stealing scrolls.

One entire wall was devoted to Katon scrolls. There were hundreds of them, and if they were just to choose randomly it might be forever before they found a useful one. Luckily Sakura already had several criteria in mind. A Katon attack was the best to choose because the scrolls were probably more detailed than the others and they had more to choose from. It had to be an attack that they both could learn, and one that could use their strengths as well. So Sakura had decided on C rank jutsu, Katon based, and one that didn't explode because that would not play well with Naruto's use of Kage Bunshin.

Then again they needed something easy too, Sakura realized. This was nature manipulation and it was not something that either of them had done before. If Sasuke had consented to train with them it would probably be easy, but the Uchiha was still shunning all of her and Naruto's overtures on that part.

"Mmm, here we are." Sakura opened up the massive tomb that listed the jutsu in order and their strengths and weaknesses. Now she did not have to read through every scroll just to find out if they would work or not.

"Sakura, what are we looking for?" Naruto asked as he peered over her shoulder.

"I'm trying to find a couple jutsu that will suit us. We need something to learn nature manipulation with that might also be useful, and an attack we can both learn." Sakura looked over her shoulder at her blond teammate just as he stabbed his finger down on the jutsu list.

"How about this one for our attack then?" Naruto said as he looked to Sakura. "Katon Ryuka no Jutsu. Close to medium ranged and it uses ninja wires to channel the attack. It'd be perfect for you, and well ninja wire is pretty cool. I've been thinking about how I can use it as well."

"That's a good one." Sakura agreed as she read the pros and cons of the jutsu. It had to be used with wire or a cord to get the projection right she saw, but it was only C ranked. There was also a note that indicated the more chakra that was used the stronger it was, and that it was a good first step to learning the Katon Karyu Endan a B ranked jutsu. She stabbed her own finger down. "How about this one for learning how to manipulate fire? Katon Sphere of Fire no Justu a D ranked manipulation technique that forms a ball of fire in the hand, it can be used as a light source, to start campfires, or as a weapon in taijutsu attacks."

"Maybe we should find some more as well? These won't slow us down for long." Naruto was getting more into this library thing every moment they were there Sakura could tell. She shook her head at his idea though.

"No these will be enough for now. We'll try and learn them in the time we have left before the exams. Trying to learn more would just slow us down." Sakura moved over the shelves and pulled out both scrolls. She moved over to a desk and opened up the first. "A sealless jutsu? This might be more useful and harder than I thought."

"How hard can it be?" Naruto grouched as he read the scroll with her. He held up his hand palm facing the sky and Sakura watched him strain for a few long moments. He gave a heavy sigh and shook his head. "It is hard. How are you supposed to make chakra fiery?"

"What is fire?" Sakura asked as she looked down at the bottom of the scroll.

'Contemplate the essence of fire and seek that within your chakra and you shall succeed.' It was not much in the way of advice and for once Sakura wished that these scrolls would just explain things. Instead they always just gave hints and the like and never really told you how or why to do something. Part of looking underneath the underneath that shinobi were supposed to do.

"Open the other scroll and then we can learn how to do that as well, and then we can go train."

Sakura followed Naruto's advice. She knew part of the reason he was pushing for it was because outside of the library he could unleash his Kage Bunshin and dramatically speed up his progress. Still she wanted to get to it as well, and a library was not a good place to practice Katon jutsu.

"Serpent, dragon, hare and tiger are the seals. Then you gather chakra and air in your lungs as you inhale while pushing chakra down the wire at the same time. You project the air and flame chakra from your lungs down the wire and let it ingite." Sakura said cementing the instructions into her mind. Once again there was a riddle attached to the jutsu supposedly saying how to do it easier. "The breath of the dragon is fierce, but only after it has left the lips."

The pair spent several more minutes studying the scroll before they both came to a decision. Sakura was smiling as she left the library mostly because having someone to do this with was a lot more fun.


	3. Chapter 3

Author Note: Team 7 does not meet Gaara and Co in this timeline and Konohamaru does not have his run-in with Kankuro.

Additionally I'd like to thank everyone who has commented on this so far. It is something of a new projecto for me, I've never tried to write in this universe before.

Chapter 3

Seven days had passed since Sakura had unlocked her clan's family secrets. Seven days of training had blurred into a grueling week. One that Sakura was glad to see had come to an end.

Learning new ninjutsu techniques should have been easy, and it should have been less tiring than practicing her new dances. However, it was anything but easy. Keeping up with Naruto had been a lot of work. She had to put forth all the effort on both the Katon jutsu and he had relatively breezed through them thanks to his impossible chakra reserves.

Still she had grown. Sakura had managed to triple her chakra reserves in the short week whether through just hard training or as a side affect of that first family jutsu she did not know. When she was being truthful to herself she did not really care either.

There were side affects from that jutsu that were still making themselves known. As the days went by she had gotten stronger, but with that strength had come the bleaching of some of her hair. No longer was she the pink cherry blossom, but now that cherry blossom was shot through with white. Her temper when dealing with things she had tediously done was shorter, and so was her hair. Hinata's cut had been cute so Sakura had copied it though the long sideburns had turned into two braids that reached her shoulders.

Her war-braids.

Another visit to the library after getting the ninjutsu with Naruto had turned up a scroll on the long dead Suiren clan. Their history and their customs had been detailed in the scroll. Sakura had decided that it was time to bring some of those customs back to life. The Haruno clan would inherit them just as they inherited the techniques as well.

The war-braids were the first of those customs. There were others and they had already brought her into a clash with her family. That had been something she had been dreading ever since becoming a genin, and now it had arrived. Part of her agreed with them that fourteen was far too young to be doing these things, but she was shinobi now. Life and death was in Sakura's hands and the hitai-ate secured in its fated position around her brow made her an adult. A young one and one that knew she would make juvenile mistakes but an adult none-the-less.

Maybe it was time to move out and become a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto's voice called from the examination building. The cheery blonde and the gloomy raven-haired avenger were both waiting for her. One smiled, one scowled at her as she approached. Sakura gave them a grin in return. They were her team and that meant she was willing to overlook certain character flaws.

"Naruto, Sasuke are we ready?"

"Hn."

"Just waiting for you Sakura-chan." Sakura shared another smile with the blonde as he spoke and she waved towards the examination building. "Well then what are we waiting for?"

The chuunin exams were something that the three of them had been preparing for. It was weeks worth of hard work for them, or at least for Naruto and Sakura. She had no idea what Sasuke had been doing in the last week. Probably brooding. Even if she was willing to overlook them she was not willing to give Sasuke a free pass.

There were a lot of genin teams present already. They filled the second floor hallway all gathered around waiting to pass to the second floor. Sakura followed behind Sasuke and Naruto as they pushed their way through the crowd much to the irritation of some in it.

Two chuunin guarded the staircase to the third floor, and were just getting done beating up and tossing away a green leotard clad genin with a bowl cut. Sakura narrowed her eyes at that she did not like bullies. Then again the green clad boy was hardly a weakling. There were hard lines of muscle under the skintight suit and he was acting much weaker and hurt than he was.

"Genjutsu?" Sakura ventured glancing over at Sasuke who gave a slight nod. Genjutsu made her eyes itch. Henge still worked most of the time unless it was trying to cover a really big item. She had found that out working with Naruto.

"They really don't expect us to believe that this is the test room do they? We only came up one flight of stairs, only an idiot would confuse the second for the third floor." Naruto exclaimed loud enough for all the waiting teams to hear him and earn their ire. Sakura could not really bring herself to worry too much about that as any team that got caught by this was nothing to worry about.

"Get out of the way." Sasuke told the two supposed chuunin guarding the staircase.

"Or you'll what? We decided to weed out the weaklings this year and if you can't…"

Sakura had enough of this. If they dallied around for much longer they might be late, and she was not going to forfeit because of that. She pushed chakra into another seal on her lily knife, and the blade was suddenly covered in a much larger one. Three feet across at its widest point it weighed over a hundred pounds when it was not lightened, or made heavier by the density seal. She swung it flat side on at one of the chuunin who slipped into a kick to deflect it. Neither landed as the green clad genin was there. One hand stopped the kick the other had stopped the blade slap and he did not even look to be straining.

"There is no need to fight." The green genin let go of the leg and stepped back from Sakura's blade. "You are Haruno Sakura, yes?"

"Yes." Sakura replied her eyes narrowing as she looked at her fellow Konoha shinobi. She did not recognize him, but it appeared that he was from the class ahead of them.

"I am Rock Lee. It is an honor to make the acquaintance of such a shining flower of youth!"

Sakura paled and she could feel her eyebrow twitching. If Lee had not been so, strange, she might have actually been touched by his words. As it was she could not take her eyes off the large fuzzy eyebrows that were perched so expressively over his eyes. The fact that he had shouted the last few words while standing in a nice guy pose and giving her a thumbs up only made it worse.

"Will you go on a date with me Sakura-san?" Lee's words made the tic grow worse and her grip on her weapon tightened.

"Lee this isn't what we agreed. It was your idea to hide how strong we are." It was a Hyuga that spoke and obviously Lee's teammate.

Sakura looked the entire team over and gave a soft nod. The team was unbalanced. Both the Hyuga and Lee were close range taijutsu experts, and the kunoichi had the lithe appearance and the scarred hands of a weapons expert.

"I'm sorry it is just that…" Lee looked over at Sakura as he trailed off and she shuddered again.

"Yeah, well we need to be going." Sakura rushed into the conversation grabbing the arms of her two teammates and hurrying up the stairs. They really needed to hurry up and get to the assigned room. They needed to do it double fast before that Lee kid said anything else that was weird.

They seemed just as relieved to be moving as she did, and before too much time had passed they were standing in front of the door indicated on their application sheets.

"Yo." Kakashi-sensei was suddenly right there in front of them. Sakura decided that that was one jutsu she was going to have to learn sometime in the next few weeks. It would be incredibly useful.

"Kakashi what are you doing here?" Sasuke asked in a bored tone of voice.

"Making sure the three of you arrived for the test." Kakashi replied and his voice stressed the number. "If any of you had decided not to show up then you would have all failed."

Sakura did not fail to notice that Sasuke looked off to the side then failing to meet the jounin's gaze. Had Sasuke actually been thinking about not showing up, she wondered. He had been acting increasing perturbed by the speed at which Naruto and her were progressing. After that first spar with her he had not lost another one, but it had been close. Naruto, well the blonde was on almost an even keel now if he could use his Kage Bunshin in waves.

"Well you're all here now though." Kakashi eye smiled at them and Sakura could feel her pride expand. "I guess I'll let you continue. Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke, make me proud." Kakashi stepped out of the way of the door.

Sakura stepped through with her teammates feeling for the first time that she was ready for this. That she had finally gained enough strength to walk at their sides and not two steps behind. She would protect them.

It was a feeling that hardened inside her as she stepped through the door to the examination room. It was already filled with people, and most of them were years older than they. There were few people in the room that did not have the cold hard eyes of experienced killers. Sakura felt her jaw clench and looked back unblinking. She did not know how her eyes looked to them, hard frozen flecks of jade in a face that showed sullen anger. It would have soothed her had she known that the lack of doubt she projected had unsettled many of them.

Doubtless kunoichi stood by a laughing monster of chakra accompanied by a brooding avenger. Like many of the teams already in the room Team 7 was a conglomeration of aberrant behavior.

"Sasuke! You're late!" Ino cried as she glommed onto Sasuke. Sakura still did not know how to feel about the meeting. She had been avoiding this day for a while now. True one of her goals was to regain Ino's friendship but doing that while competing to be chuunin would be difficult.

So she ignored the platinum haired kunoichi as she turned towards Shikamaru and Chouji. They looked like they always did. The raven-haired slacker, and the brown haired glutton had not changed a bit since the academy. Still it would not do to underestimate the Ino-Shika-Chou group.

"You're taking this troublesome exam too?" Shikamaru groaned as he stepped in closer before taking a second look at Sakura. She resisted the urge to bristle or pose under his examination. "Huh, it looks like someone is taking being a Kunoichi seriously. Maybe Ino could learn something."

"What did you say, there is no way that Sakura…" Ino stopped and Sakura let a smirk lift the corner of her lips. Ino was actually looking at her for once and not in that condescending way, but actually studying her rival and once friend. Suddenly Ino was right in Sakura's face finger jammed into chest. "Who the hell are you and what have you done to forehead girl!"

"What the hell are you talking about Ino-pig!" Sakura roared back as she poked Ino in reply. "I've been training what the hell do you think I've done to myself!"

It was rapidly escalating into a fight and Sakura was relieved when the third rookie team showed up.

"Heh, you guys actually showed up." Kiba smirked as he stepped towards them.

"Of course!" Naruto grinned at feral looking boy. Sakura gave them a bit of grin for defusing the situation.

"Naruto, everyone." Sakura noticed the blush as Hinata looked away from the exuberant smile that Naruto was giving her.

That was something she would have followed up on if another Konoha ninja had not taken that moment to interrupt. Kabuto.

(A/N: Skipping ahead because everything up to the entry into the forest of death and until the run in with Orochimaru happens as it does in the anime/manga)

&&&&&

Sakura grunted as the grass-nin turned her gaze on them. So much killing intent, and her eyes itched just like when a genjutsu was being used. She glanced to the side where Sasuke stood frozen. The Uchiha prodigy was actually shaking in fear and his body was moving in a rather uncoordinated fashion. She was so involved in what was happening to him that she did not even realize the danger they were in until almost too late.

"It is too bad I wanted to play some more." The grass-nin said as she launched a pair of kunai at the two genin.

Sakura caught a glimpse of them as Sasuke slammed his own kunai into his leg as she leaped away. There was no way that Sakura could stand up to this ninja; she was far too strong, too strong for a chuunin even. The grass-nin could only be a jounin in disguise. With that in mind Sakura slipped further into the forest. She kept Sasuke in view as he hid behind a tree slipping one of her lily knives free.

A glance and a pulse of chakra was all it took to drop in the first level of release now. Sakura felt the calm fall over her as she looked around her surroundings again memorizing them. The grass-nin was gone, but now there was a giant snake trying to sneak up behind Sasuke.

Sakura launched a handful of kunai at the snake and their flight alerted Sasuke of its presence. Sakura gave a bit of a smile as she melted back into the forest again, and working to subdue her chakra signature. Sasuke would have to fight the ninja by himself. Sakura knew that if she tried to face the other ninja head on it would only lead to injury and that would keep Sasuke from fighting at full force.

"No! Don't come any closer!" Sasuke screamed flinging a double handful of shuriken at the snake.

It fell dead on a branch and Sakura looked at her teammate worriedly. The Sharingan was supposed to see through genjutsu, but obviously Sasuke was still suffering from the earlier attack. She might have to take a more active role in this if they were going to survive, let alone win.

The snake began to bulge and the grass-nin pushed her way out of it again. She curled around the branch like a snake and Sakura wondered if that was a ninjutsu or a bloodline limit. Sasuke was just standing there though as the ninja approached him, and Sakura could see his knees trembling. She was just about to intervene herself when a rain of kunai and shuriken slammed into the branch at the foreign ninja's face.

"About the password, I forgot." Naruto growled from the branch he was standing on, along with a pair of clones. Sakura heaved a sigh of relief. With Naruto here they had a chance to turn the fight in their favor.

"Naruto, we need to retreat there is no way we can defeat this ninja." Sasuke yelled and Sakura gave a gasp. She never thought he would say those words. The next action surprised her even more as Sasuke pulled out the scroll and offered it to the foreign ninja. "Take the scroll, and we'll go."

Sakura watched horrified as her teammate tossed the scroll at the foreign ninja. She could not believe he was doing this. Had he lost that much pride? Had he come to doubt himself that much in the last week? She growled internally at the thought that she had even once chased after such a weak guy. Luckily Naruto intercepted the scroll in mid-flight.

The blonde ninja did not stop there though, and Sakura was a bit gratified to see his fist slam into Sasuke's face rocketing the Uchiha back into a tree.

"What the hell have you done to Sasuke?" Naruto growled as he tucked the scroll away. He turned towards the grass-nin and glared at the woman. Sakura could feel his rage burning; feel the malevolent chakra begin to surge around her teammate. "Sasuke isn't this weak, he isn't a goddamn coward like this! If you want a fight, I'll give you one! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Sakura slipped closer as the forest filled with copies of the orange clad genin. She needed to get Sasuke and they needed to retreat while Naruto's clones held the other busy.

Sakura never got the chance to put her plan into action. The grass-nin blew through hand seals and slapped her hand to the ground. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

Trees were flattened by the sudden appearance of a giant snake, and most of Naruto's clones puffed away into smoke. The snake slapped its tail at Naruto catching the blonde full on much to Sakura's dismay. She watched as he flew through the air and slammed into a tree trunk sliding down it. She started towards him intent on catching him as the snake launched itself at Sasuke in an attack.

Sakura came to a stop on a tree as Naruto simply disappeared from where he was falling. He was moving fast, as fast as she had ever seen Kakashi-sensei move. There was a sudden meaty crunch as the snake stopped and she could see Sasuke from where she slipped back into hiding. He was unharmed, and Naruto had stopped the snake mere feet before it had slammed into the Uchiha.

"Hey, were you hurt coward?" Naruto growled as he held back the snake seemingly by sheer will power.

Sakura held back a cheer as she tightened her grip on the control handle for her weapon. A cheer that would have been short lived as the grass-nin's tongue darted out and wound around Naruto lifting him from where he stood. Purple fires glowed on the grass-nin's fingers and Sakura did not have to be told this was bad. Sakura acted before she even had a chance to think the plan through.

The lily blade intercepted the fingers right before they hit Naruto in the stomach, but the dark chakra shattered the blade. That threw shrapnel into Nartuo's body and cut him severely. The grass-nin flung Naruto away, and he crunched into the tree with bone breaking force before falling down to the forest floor. Sakura launched a kunai to snag his coat and halt his progress but that was all she had time for before the grass-nin refocused on her.

It was Sakura's turn to be the center of the powerful ninja's attention and she readied another lily blade to replace the first as she glared back at her opponent. This was bad, really, really bad and Sakura moved the blade up in front of her lower face gathering chakra at she did so. She had enough for the third stage of release now, maybe, hopefully that would be enough.

&&&&&

"No!" Sasuke yelled as he saw the grass-nin shift her focus to Sakura. The sudden explosion of steel that had stopped whatever attack had been aimed at Naruto had left a multitude of cuts on the foreign ninja's hand and she was obviously pissed about it.

Besides Naruto was right. He was acting like a coward, and not like an Uchiha. How was he supposed to be able to get strong enough to beat his brother if he was not strong enough to face something the dead last and the useless Haruno girl could face? Sasuke's hands flashed through seals as he jumped to impose himself between Sakura and the grass-nin.

'Katon: Housenka no Jutsu,' echoed in his head as Sasuke focused the chakra in his lungs inhaling deeply. The Sharingan was making things so much clearer, and it seemed that the grass-nin was almost moving in slow motion as she moved to dodge the flurry of fireballs. Sasuke gave her no time to recover though; he had to keep the ninja's attention away from Sakura and Naruto so that they could withdraw.

'Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu' was a familiar one. His first Katon jutsu and among the most powerful that he knew. His fingers moved to his lips to direct the fireball, and he played the stream over the giant snake and its master until he could breath out no more. The snake was a charred husk, but the grass-nin only slumped into a pile of mud.

Sasuke slipped to the side as he heard something move behind him. The kick he saw out of the corner of his eye and he ducked it while spinning in a sweep kick. The grass-nin laughed as she jumped over it, and Sasuke followed the sweep up with right hook.

"Good, good the Uchiha blood is boiling. Show me your strength Sasuke." The grass-nin launched a flurry of blows that Sasuke dodged or blocked. It was so easy with the Sharingan he could see everything as it came. He could see what the grass-nin was going to do, and anticipate it move to counter it.

Sasuke launched a series of shuriken at the ninja as he leaped away to gain additional distance. It was time to use something he had stolen for Sakura, and wires trailed after those shuriken.

"You need to work on your aim though Sasuke."

"Do I?" Sasuke smirked as he channeled chakra through the wires and guided the flight of shuriken back at their target. The slammed into the ninja with an almost sickening thud, but once again the figure slumped into mud.

"Very good, but not good enough." The voice came from behind him and Sasuke had no time to react as the attack began.

A fist to the gut sent searing pain through his body, and a kick followed to blast him back into a tree trunk. Sasuke barely had time to palm an explosive note and slap it onto an arm before another kick crunched into his ribs. As he flew through the air he coughed up blood from where he had bitten his lip and winced as pain flared through his side.

A burst of chakra set the note to burning on the ninja's arm, and that was all the distraction that Sasuke needed as he landed on another tree. Four fuuma shuriken arced from his hands, controlled by the wires as they whistled through the forest. The other ninja did not even notice the wires as her arm was blown off in a gout of blood. Finally some real damage had been done, Sasuke noted, still that was only the beginning and now here was the end.

"One of the Sharingan windmill techniques?" Sasuke smirked as he saw the grass-nin realized what was happening.

Sasuke jerked the wires tight as the shuriken boomeranged back around and nailed the wires tight to the tree branch. He was already flashing through the signs.

'Katon: Karyu Endan' he focused his mind on the sub vocalized words before exhaling the built up air and chakra out of his mouth forcefully. It was off target, he realized as the stream of fire impacted the tree a bit too high and off to one side. He did not think it would matter though as the fire blew a hole through the massive tree trunk and scorched the branch and bark for meters around it.

"Kukuku… very good Sasuke-kun." The grass-nin's face was peeling skin revealing that it was a man underneath. Sasuke cursed silently as he fell to one knee. He was out of chakra he had used too much in that last attack. "I guess since you didn't disappointment me I'll let you and your team live."

Sasuke could do nothing but watch in terror as the ninja broke the high strength wire like it was mere string and stepped forward a hand pulling more skin on his face off. The grass hitai-ate turned into a sound, and Sasuke stared into snakelike eyes set in an angular, too-pale face. A face that suddenly shot towards him on the end of a long neck as the man's remaining hand formed a series of seals.

Sasuke screamed in pain as teeth bit into his neck. He could feel some sort of poison coursing into his body, but he could not move could not do anything more than kneel there and scream. He hoped that the ninja would let Sakura and Naruto go like he said he would. He hoped his teammates had the sense to run and live through this.

"My name is Orochimaru and I am the Otokage. Seek me when you want power Sasuke-kun." With those words darkness descended upon Sasuke.

&&&&&

Sakura was feeling the after effects of a long stressful day, followed by a night of far too little sleep. Naruto had awakened part way through the night, but he was still feeling the pain of more than a few broken ribs. She had insisted that he go back to sleep to heal more. Sakura had realized he healed fast, and now she was seeing it again first hand. It would be hours, if not days, before he was really back into fighting form.

As for Sasuke, well Sasuke was still unconscious. He had groaned throughout the night, and Sakura had to resort to gagging him, as those groans had grown louder. If he drew too much attention another group would be after them, and Sakura did not know if she could successfully defend their heaven scroll against another group.

She shifted as she heard something, and a squirrel came out of the bushes. Sakura gave it glance every now and again as she scanned the clearing. It had taken most of the kunai and shuriken that they had left, but she had set up several traps around it. If only she could stay awake until Naruto woke again.

There was something, she realized, on the squirrels back. Sakura could not tell what it was, and she did not want to let it get closer to see exactly what was going on with it. It was simple to throw one of five remaining lily knives at the animal and scare it off. If that was a tag of some sort then there was a team nearby, and that action was probably enough to alert them of her, and her team's presence.

"Naruto wake up. Stay still." Sakura could tell from the change in his breathing that Naruto heard her. He shifted a bit, reaching for a kunai with his far hand. A hiss of breath told her that he still had not healed enough to fight at full strength. So, it was up to her.

"Guarding them are you?" The gloating voice came from a figure of a man that had not been there but ten minutes ago. Sakura glared at the trio as she wearily pushed herself to her feet. Three gray and brown camouflage wearing ninja were on the far edge of the clearing. As usual it was a team made of two men and a kunoichi. "Wake Sasuke-kun up. We're here to challenge him."

"Why should I do that?" Sakura declared lifting a soldier pill to her mouth. They were expensive, but it was necessary. Almost immediately Sakura felt new strength and new sharpness flow into her body and mind. Using soldier pills could be dangerous because they gave an illusion of power and invincibility. Sakura's eyes locked upon their hitai-ate, and she realized that they were working for that ninja from the day before. "I know you're working for Orichimaru. What do you know of the marking he gave Sasuke?"

"Orochimaru did not tell us of anything like that. We're just here to test his strength." It was the largest of the three Oto-nin that was speaking, and his gloating voice was starting to get on Sakura's nerves.

"Well you'll just have to test your strength against me first." Sakura growled as she tightened her grip on the control ring for the lily blade she had thrown earlier.

"Mmm, we were going to let you go, but now that you've spoken I don't think you can." The other male said softly as he pushed to his feet. He stood on the rock and made to move forward.

"Wait Zaku. I can tell from the soil here that it has recently been turned." The larger Oto-nin took a step forward and set his hand on the ground before straightening.

"So, Dosu, she just wanted to keep the squirrel from ruining her trap eh?" Zaku smirked as he looked at Sakura. She could not believe how easily they were fooled from looking underneath the underneath.

"Good, then we can attack then." Dosu lead the leap into the air.

Sakura smirked as she cut the wires that were holding the log trap and several of the kunai traps in their set position. The three Oto-nin were in midair and unable to dodge the flurry of weapons and the large log bearing down on them. Unfortunately they did not have to dodge. Sakura was shocked as Dosu seemingly punched the large log and blew it to splinters. Even worse was Zaku unleashing some sort of air attack and blowing the carefully prepared kunai away from the trio.

Sakura growled as she started channeling chakra into her knife. The situation was not good, but if she had too then she would take them all on at once at close range. She jerked on the control ring to pull the lily blade back in preparation to begin the Dance of the Giant Lily when suddenly there was the shout of a familiar voice from overhead.

"Konoha Daisenpuu!" All three Oto-nin were flung back by powerful kicks from the green clad genin. Sakura groaned as he landed in front of Sakura and took up his signature taijutsu stance. "You should work harder."

"Who are you?" Dosu asked, and Sakura could tell he was as stunned as she was.

"Konoha's gorgeous green beast, Rock Lee."

Sakura almost laughed at the sight of the familiar genin in front of her, a squirrel on his shoulder. However, right now was not a time for laughing.

"Nice entrance Lee, but next time leave me someone to hit." Sakura stepped up next to him determined not to stand in the background any longer. Orochimaru had been bad enough; she had known she was not near his level. These three genin, well she could take them one on one.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Sakura…" Lee could not believe what he had heard. Sakura the girl he had seen in the academy, the one that had been bullied because of her forehead, she would never have said something like that. Not in the tone of voice she had just said it in. She had been acting strange yesterday as well, but her team had accepted it so he had thought nothing of it.

"Lee, you saw their attacks, they have something hidden." Sakura mumbled under her breath just loud enough for him to hear. "I don't know what the kunoichi has in reserve, but I'm going to take her out first. From numbers strength, remember?"

"Yes." Lee answered as he settled a bit deeper into his fighting stance. Sakura had always been like him in the academy, had always lagged behind because of her lack of a ninja family. She had graduated like him because of hard work. He had always respected that, had always wanted to encourage her hard work but had never had the courage to do so. "Let us show them what hard work can do Sakura."

"Keep the other two busy Lee." Sakura said in reply as she cracked her knuckles.

Lee watched his opponents, and Sakura on the edge of his vision. She lifted the strange blade up to her face and nothing. A few moments later her voice rang out strongly.

"Kai!" This time there was a surge of charka that even Lee could feel. Was one of the Oto-nin casting a genjutsu? No, there were none of the telltale signs that Gai-sensei had told him to watch out for. Then what?

It hit him when he heard Sakura's knuckles creaking on the control ring of her strange blade. The sudden heavy feeling in the air, the unexpected heat off to his right side. She had opened a gate, or come so close to doing so that it did not matter that it was still shut. This was, well Lee was not sure what it was, but it was not good.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to come at you seriously." Sakura said in a cold voice next to him, and then suddenly there was a blur that he could barely follow. The blade crashed into the ground where the Oto-kunoichi had once stood, completely splitting the log she had used to Kawarimi with in half.

"Yosh!" Lee cried a smile sliding onto his face. Obviously Sakura worked just as hard to improve herself as he had. Just as she was showing him the fruits of her labor, he would do the same for her. His feet shifted just slightly and his expression turned more serious.

Neither Konoha-nin noticed the other observers to the battle.

&&&&&

"Ino, are you okay with just hiding here? She was your friend wasn't she?" Shikamaru had a point, but one that Ino was not entirely comfortable with.

Sakura had been her friend, and her closest friend at that. Ever since she had given the other girl that hair ribbon back when they were just little kids, they had been very close. Right up until that thing with Sasuke.

Ino had known it was a stupid thing to break up a friendship over, but everything had spiraled out of control. She had thought Sakura had gone after Sasuke only to gain more friends, to be part of the crowd. It might have been partially true, but then again Sakura had also tried to help Ino in achieving that goal as well. It had not been until the team assignments that things had fully fallen apart.

'_I won't lose to you Sakura. Never to you.'_ Ino's words still rang in her own ears, along with the wrenching of her heart when she said them. Seeing Sakura at the exam just the other day with her hair short, and seemingly not interested at all in Sasuke or upset that Ino still was had destabilized her world.

"Ino, this is bad. Even with that Lee character, it is still three on two." Shikamaru urged again from where he was.

He was doing a bothersome thing, and all because it was Ino's friend out there. Well that and because Naruto was also apparently unconscious under the shelter of the root. Chouji and Shikamaru could not care less what happened to Sasuke, no matter what she thought, but they were friends of a sort with the blonde hair menace.

"I know." Ino cringed as Sakura went into action, as little of it as there actually was. The pink haired kunoichi was just standing there as the gleaming blade moved in pursuit of the Oto-nin. It was almost frightening to see how far Sakura had come in such a short period of time. Ino shook her head as she thought. _'When did you get so strong Sakura?'_

Ino was not sure that she would be able to keep her threat, her promise to Sakura. Not now, not when Sakura could do something like that. _'But do I really want to keep that promise? I want my friend back.'_

"Ino." Shikamaru whispered again. Chouji was thankfully quiet, not even munching on his chips.

It did not matter though, Ino's hands were already moving through the seals of her family jutsu. She paused on the last one before releasing the pulse of chakra at Zaku. "Shintenshin no Jutsu!"

There was a momentary pulse of uncertainty as the jutsu took affect. It was always that way, and part of Ino's training had been to deal with that. It only took a second, and then she was pulling a kunai loose with one hand and jumping at Dosu. The surprise took him by surprise, and Lee as well. The Konoha ninja did not bother to look a gift horse in the mouth though, and sprang into another of his whirling kicks.

"Konoha Daisenpuu!"

'_Damn! I wasn't expecting him to attack me as well! If he hits me with one of those not only will the Oto-nin be out of it, I'll be out of it as well!'_ Ino vaulted out of the way of Lee's kicks before she shouted over at Sakura. "Forehead, tell him I'm on your side!"

"Ino?" Sakura had not even paused in her attack on Kin, and the Oto-kunoichi was already bleeding from a half dozen shallow cuts.

"You better believe it forehead girl! Like I'd let you look cool in front of Sasuke without doing the same." Ino grinned as she straightened where she stood. She tossed her head. "I should have expected you'd need my help."

"Like we really needed you butting in Ino-pig. Its ok Lee she had him under her control right now. Just concentrate on the Dosu fellow." Sakura smirked at her friend who was currently possessing Zaku.

"Kin! Watch out!"

Ino smirked again as Dosu yelled at his teammate; Shikamaru's shadow almost catching the Kunoichi as she strayed too close to where he hid. She turned her glare back on the hulking Oto-nin. She did not dare get too close to the other ninja, but she could keep them both busy. Ino reached into the kunai pouch and pulled forth a triplet of knives. This was going to be fun.

&&&&&

Sakura smiled as her pad knife blocked another set of senbon needles that Kin launched at her. She could not help it. Ino was here, and Ino was going to see just how strong Sakura had gotten since they had graduated. It was time to step her attacks up another notch.

It was obvious that Kin was a ranged fighter. It was also fairly certain that she was a genjutsu user. The ringing in Sakura's ears was probably a sound based genjutsu. Too bad it did not seem to be working correctly. It was playing havoc with her sense of balance, or had been until Sakura used the body control granted by the second stage of release to clench the muscles in the inner ear that damped out loud noises. That helped immensely.

So closing to close range would slew the fight even more in Sakura's favor.

Sakura dropped the control of the knife she had in the air. Coiling the wire would be too much trouble right now, and so instead she pulled a new one from the sheath on her back. Chakra poured into the seal set into the weapon, and once again three-foot wide blade engulfed its smaller six-inch sibling.

"What the hell!" Kin shouted.

Sakura was right there in her face. Moving while in the second stage of release was difficult to describe. There was not so much movement as the thought of movement. To decide I want to be there, meant you were there, even with a hundred pounds of density-enhanced weapon weighing you down. Sakura loved it. Even if it did make her feel like she had been sparring with Naruto for three hours after a measly fifteen minutes. She was strong while in it.

"Dance of the Giant Lily." Sakura whispered, loud enough for only Kin to hear her. The blade whistled over the taller woman's head as she ducked, and Sakura let the weight of the blade continue her spin. The side kick that Sakura slammed into the woman's guard had all of her enhanced strength behind it, and the all the power of the counter-balance blade.

The Oto-nin slid to a stop several feet away as Sakura straightened. "Why isn't my genjutsu working? What type of freak are you? No rookie kunoichi can be that strong."

Sakura growled at the other kunoichi. This was starting to piss her off. First she was not respected because she was not strong enough. Now people were calling her a freak because she was strong. Well freak or not someone was going to get pounded.

"I'm the freak that is going to put you down." Sakura hissed. She threw a set of shuriken with her left hand and waited until the other ninja had just left the ground to make her move.

Sakura wondered as she did if the Sharingan was anything like this. She had time to think about what each move Kin was going to make as she made them. She had thrown a flight of kunai to make Kin jump, and retaliate with her own. It was easy enough to block the projectiles with the flat of her weapon and then leap in to intercept Kin in mid-flight.

Easy enough for Sakura, but she did not notice the sudden trepidation in the possessed Oto-nin's eyes behind her. Lee had not even noticed. Training with Gai-sensei had left the boy believing that some people just phased in and out of sight while fighting. The twin pressure craters her feet left behind was nothing compared to what Lee could do either with his weights off.

Kin though had eyes as big as tea saucers when the flat of the giant blade slammed into her side. There was a crunch of bone as Kin's shoulder and arm broke under the stress, and Sakura's face only became a bit colder as the woman's scream echoed through the clearing. Sakura had not been able to completely kill her heart and her compassion in the moments before the blade had hit. She had chosen to simply break the other ninja, rather than kill her outright.

Sakura still did not know if that had been a good idea or a bad idea. A crippled ninja did not have much of a life to look forward to, and she had pretty much just crippled Kin. Sakura sighed before stepping closer to the writhing screaming woman and she snap kicked her opponent in the head. That shut her up at least.

Sakura turned back to the fight still in progress hoping that she would not be needed to intervene. Her chakra reserves were incredibly low right now, and fatigue had just begun to roll over her in waves as the second stage of release faltered and then broke. She had been pushed herself too hard since yesterday. Carrying both of the boys to safety, setting the traps, and then this fight on top of it.

Lee, however, did not appear to need any help. The taijutsu specialist was methodically picking apart Dosu's guard with high-speed lunges before darting back out of range. Neither really seemed to be out on top yet, Lee's attacks were almost drunken looking as he weaved after each one.

"He's got some sort of sound weapon on his arm. He almost hit Lee with it a moment ago." Ino in the form of Zaku said softly as she retreated back towards where her group was, and the safety of her own body.

"Ino, how long can you stay in him? Your chakra has to be getting low." Sakura asked as she continued to watch the fight. Her blade morphed back to its regular size and she gave a sigh of relief.

"Another ten minutes before it starts to become critical. Do you think Lee needs help?" Ino looked over at the boy with concern. It was strange talking to Ino like this, but Sakura had practice from back in school when the girl used to take over Shikamaru every once in a while just to get him to come to class. After an incident with lipstick and women's clothing Shikamaru had never failed to come on his own again. Naruto was good for ideas at least.

"Maybe." Sakura replied as she continued to watch the match. She was beginning to tremble now from physical fatigue and overwork. "We need to take care of the guy you're in first though. Move him over to a tree and I'll tie you up."

"Good idea. I was going to have Shikamaru bind him and then Chouji crush him, but being tied up is better." Ino led the way over to the nearest tree and Sakura began carefully tying the ninja to it with more ninja wire. She carefully bound the hands into the form of the ram and then secured his arms placed to his chest.

"Ino," Sakura said hesitantly before looking up into the eyes of the man. "When we get out of this, we need to talk."

"About what forehead?" Ino growled in reply, and Sakura could tell that the other girl just wanted out of the body she was in. It was likely that she had overestimated her chakra reserves again, that or the guy was getting feisty at being tied up while possessed.

"About us Ino." Sakura was going to say more when there was a sudden shout behind her.

"Watch out Sakura-chan!" Naruto yelled from where he was still half hunched over his probably still broken ribs.

Sakura turned to see Zaku coming straight at her, one arm hanging limply at his side. Behind him Lee was bent over on all fours busily puking his guts out. There was no time to block, and barely enough time to do what she did. Zaku had a moment to think that he had won the fight before the Sakura before him turned into a log. In that moment of success the battle was lost for the Oto-nin.

"Kagemane no Jutsu, success." Shikamaru stood in a bush not far from where Sakura had reappeared after performing the Kawarimi.

"Sakura are you ok? Nice job Shikamaru!" Naruto was running questions a hundred a second and did not look to be set to run out any time soon.

"Shut up Naruto!" Sakura shot him a glare before looking at Shikamaru. "How long can you hold him?"

"Long enough for me to finish him off." A voice spoke from above Naruto. "After all that is our teammate on the ground there."

Sakura could just about scream in frustration as yet more people came out of the woodwork. It was the Hyuuga and Lee's other teammate from their meeting at the first exam. The girl had that doubled foreign name, Tenten that was it.

"I was just going to tie him up with some more wire." Sakura turned to look up at Neji. "If you have a better idea though." She let her voice trail off and began tapping her foot on the ground. "We need to get it done quick. A fight like that will no doubt have drawn attention, and we need to leave before some other team or teams come to pick up the pieces."

"Hn. You're right. Tie him up and get the scroll. Tenten and I will get Lee and your teammate. We'll settle who gets the scroll when we put some distance between us and the battleground." Neji leaped lightly to the ground.

Sakura gave a nod as she whipped out more wire and worked with Shikamaru to tie up the last Oto-nin. After pulling the scroll from a pouch she added more wire to the two using up four D missions' pay worth of wire on them. At least it ended in a scroll, and an Earth one her glance confirmed. Damn, there might be a fight over this after all.

Sakura sagged after putting the scroll into her pouch. Kami, she was tired. It was only now after the first stage of release dropped away, no longer held strong by adrenaline and her will did she feel it. Her body was filled with a deep weariness that would take hours of sleep to fade. Real food would help as well. Sakura gathered up her discarded weapon, and in the interest of time and effort plucked the wire from it and discarded it. She would reattach a new one later when she had time to fool with it.

"Let's go." Neji's words were clipped, and Sakura gave a nod before moving to follow the group into the trees.

Tree jumping was one of the trademarks of Konoha ninja. Moving quickly and silently through the trees was something that came second nature to them. Other ninja could do it, but not with half the ability that even a bare Konoha chuunin learned. It was the hardest thing that Sakura had ever done right now. She slipped twice and at the beginning of the third she heard Naruto's trademark jutsu.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Sakura was going to protest, but she was not even able to get the words out before she was caught by one of the clones. The warm strong arms around her, and the familiar, comforting smell of her genin teammate lulled her into sleep.

&&&&&

Shikamaru was troubled as they moved through the trees. He had expected Ino to intervene for Sakura, and had even counted on it. To do otherwise and let his classmates be seriously injured or killed would have been troublesome. There were revelations in the fight that had occurred though.

Rock Lee was much stronger than Shikamaru had originally taken him to be. It was obvious that even if he could not use anything other than taijutsu the green clad genin was much stronger than first glance had shown. If it had not been for the fact that the Oto-nin's attacks could not be blocked the taijutsu specialist would have easily won that fight. Earplugs would be necessary in any future fight with any Oto-nin.

Sakura was a surprise as well. She had always scored well on the written tests, but it looked as if her practical skills were finally catching up with her mental abilities. When, where, and how she had gained that skill was an interesting question. Facing her in the finals would be troublesome.

Shikamaru knew that getting through this part of the genin exam was far from the last stage. It had been relatively trivial to find out that the exam was always a three-part test. The finals were always a series of one on one fights. He knew that some might think that preparing like that went against his Nara laziness, but if you spent a little time before preparing it could save you a lot of effort during a fight. That was the epitome of a lazy bum, to do as little work as probable.

"We've gone far enough." Shikamaru mumbled as he dropped to a branch and halted the flight through the trees.

Team 7 was still under-strength. Naruto was moving stiffly a testament to wounds that he was still recovering from though his Bunshin showed none of the hesitancy in movement. Sasuke had awoken some minutes earlier and though he seemed none the worse for wear he was the only one on his team that was at full power. Sakura was dead to the world and did not even move when the Kage Bunshin came to a halt with her.

Team 9, or Team Gai as they called themselves, was down a man as well. Lee was leaning heavily on Tenten as they moved through the trees, and still obviously had not recovered his equilibrium since the sound attack.

Shikamaru's team was at full strength. However, that was not saying much. Before he had seen Team 7's performance he would have placed them as the weakest genin team in the exam, but the past few minutes had changed all that. If Sakura was still the weaker of the two, which seemed likely, then against the other two members of Team 7 his had no chance. The same could be said of Team 9. Trying for the scroll now would be a bad idea.

"We need to decide what we're going to do with the scroll." Neji moved to stand in between his team and the other two, and took a confrontational stance as he did so. Shikamaru decided it was because of Team 7. They were strong enough to pose a challenge, and he was willing to take their scroll when he had not been willing to take Team 10's earlier. "Sasuke, Naruto you guys have both a Heaven and an Earth scroll now, and my team and the other both have earth scrolls. Will you hand over the Heaven scroll, or should we fight over it now?"

"What?! How'd you know what we have?" Naruto cried out in conjunction with his clones. Shikamaru sighed. It was rather obvious how the Hyuuga knew what who had.

"These eyes miss nothing. Not even the Sharingan can match the ability of the Byakugan." Neji smirked and Shikamaru gave a bit of a nod. Neji was one to watch out for. The boy was far too proud of his ability and would probably kill to keep his pride.

"Hn." Sasuke scoffed much as Shikamaru knew he would. Hopefully those two would meet in the finals. It would be interesting to see which prodigy was actually the better.

"There is no need to fight." Shikamaru interjected. "Right now my team is the only one uninjured, and though we could not beat either of you in a straight up fight right now we would only need to wait until after your battle to defeat you. That said such a battle would not be in the best interests of any of our teams, or for Konoha."

"What do you suggest then?" Tenten asked not entirely willing to let Neji be the spokesman for their group. Shikamaru had seen her edge towards her weapons pouch before his soothing words. Getting her on his side would be winning half the battle.

"An exchange, and a pooling of resources." Shikamaru looked around the three groups. His plan was going to take some smooth talking to implement, but if it worked the bothersome effort of convincing them would pay off in the end. "Neji, your group takes the Heaven scroll now. You have the best chance of being able to guard it right now, and Lee will only take a few more hours to recover so you could turn it in almost immediately. However, in exchange for the scroll you will accompany us," Shikamaru gestured to take in his team and Team 7, "while we search for two more Heaven scrolls. You will help us acquire them as well."

"Team up? That's cheating!" Naruto glared at Shikamaru, and there were grumbles from a few of the other genin as well.

"The rules do not disallow genin teams from aiding each other, though the test is meant to set us at odds with one another." Shikamaru said lounging back against the tree. Chouji was eating chips next to him, and Ino was glaring daggers at him. He knew what she was going to say when this was done, but bothersome as it would be this was worth the effort.

"Why should we agree to this?" Tenten had a thoughtful look on her face and Lee was looking far more alert than he had been. Shikamaru gave a soft internal curse before he put his trump card on the table.

"There is another round of eliminations after this one." Shikamaru saw the looks of surprise on all their faces. "The survival test has always been followed by a tournament. Konoha ninja that fight other Konoha ninja will fight hard, but on the rules of a spar. Killing our fellow shinobi would only weaken our village. The more Konoha ninja that make it to the finals means that out village looks stronger, and it also means that we will be more likely to face each other. Foreign shinobi will be less likely to hesitate if winning means killing or maiming a Konoha ninja. That weakens the village."

"So we should do this for the sake of the village?" Tenten asked to clarify Shikamaru's statement. He gave a slow nod.

"Yes."

"What if we only get one more scroll?" Naruto asked in what Shikamaru found to be a shocking revelation of insight and seriousness for the blonde genin. It would do to watch him more closely as well. Perhaps the jokester exterior had been hiding something deeper there.

"Team Nine will referee while we draw straws for it." Shikamaru said as he sighed. "It would be too bothersome to fight over it at the last minute and take too much time."

"Yosh! We'll take the deal." Lee spoke up for the first time. Shikamaru narrowed his eyes at the green clad ninja. It appeared he had been faking some of his lasting injury. Faking it quite well in fact. "We will show everyone the power of Konoha's Youth!"

"It doesn't matter. I will defeat anyone who I come up against anyway." Neji smirked as he looked at the other two teams. Shikamaru sighed this was going to be troublesome. "This way I might be able to show that the Byakugan eyes are superior."

"Hn." Sasuke turned away, obviously not willing to take on two teams by himself. Shikamaru knew had it been only Team 9, or Team 10 the Uchiha would have not hesitated to attack.

"Good. Naruto get the scroll of Heaven from Sakura and turn it over to the other team. Then we need to plan what we are going to do."

&&&&&

Naruto was concerned. Not because of grouping up with the other two teams. Shikamaru, Chouji, and even Ino he trusted because they had been in his class. When they gave their word they followed it, and they had given their word. Even fuzzy brows, panda girl, and that weird eye guy that reminded him of Hinata had pledged to follow the terms of the agreement. Team Nine had no reason to break their bond anyways. They had both the scrolls, and they had two other teams helping guard both of them. Leaving now would only hurt them.

Naruto was worried because Sakura had not yet woken up, and because Sasuke was acting even worse than normal. The brooding Uchiha had turned even darker ever since that run in with the grass-nin. He had tortured some snake to death that they had encountered while setting up camp, and chuckled about it while doing it. That was not normal for Sasuke.

There was not much Naruto could do about it right now even if he could think of something. He still hurt from his run in with the trees. His ribs had stopped lancing pain through his side at every movement. Fishing was helping too the cold water numbing the pain and washing the stink of blood and snake off him.

"Naruto," Shikamaru asked from the bank, "just what the hell happened to you guys?"

"Yeah, I never thought I would see you three beat up that bad." Chouji added from where he was helping to catch fish. The big genin moved surprisingly fast in his search for a meal Naruto realized.

"We ran into that grass-nin with the freaky tongue. She could summon these giant snakes, and was incredibly strong. She did some freaky wind jutsu that blew me into the forest, and then I got eaten by a snake. By the time I got back to Sasuke-teme and Sakura-chan the Teme was going to hand over our scroll." Naruto paused for breath as he thought back to the fight. That grass-nin had been scary strong, stronger than Zabuza, and stronger than Kakashi. She might have been as strong as Ojisan. "I got the scroll back, but then when I saved Sasuke-teme from another attack I got caught. The freak did some sort of glowing thing with her fingers and was going to hit me with it. That's the last thing I remember."

Naruto scratched the back of his head with a laugh as he looked between the two genin that were perhaps the first tentative friends he had ever had. He was still not sure what they were, but they treated him good and he used to join them in cloud watching every now and again. Chouji liked ramen, so that meant he was a good guy anyways.

"I didn't even get to use any of my new jutsu on her." Naruto shook his head and went back to catching fish and throwing them up on the bank to Shikamaru.

"New jutsu? Kakashi has been teaching you guys jutsu?" Shikamaru asked and Naruto looked up at the other genin and shook his head.

"Nah, Sakura-chan and I have been training together before and after our team meetings." Naruto gave Shikamaru a grin as he turned back towards fishing. "Sakura-chan is hella smart you know! She found all these jutsu scrolls in the library and then she helped me learn a couple with her. She says my chakra control still stinks, but I can do both of them now and they're way more powerful than hers."

"That explains how she got so strong." Shikamaru murmured and Naruto gave the other genin a nod.

Sakura had gotten strong. Naruto was glad that she had built that strength with him. It made him feel, proud, to know that he had helped her to that strength. Now he wondered if that was why Iruka-sensei taught. If so then Naruto had a new goal as well when he became Hokage. He would teach any shinobi in Konoha anything he knew to make them stronger. That would be what the greatest Hokage ever would do.

"Ne, Shikamaru," Naruto asked after thinking for a moment. They needed two more scrolls, and searching for teams had turned out to be a very difficult thing. With three teams it would be almost impossible to sneak up one someone though they could envelope another team easily. "We need two scrolls right? Why don't we make the teams come to us then? Springing an ambush is better than walking into one right?"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Sakura was sitting this one out. She had awoken two hours ago groggy, shaking, and sore beyond belief. That was what happened when you pushed your body beyond its natural limits. So she had not put up much of a fight when the plan had been explained to her.

Daybreak was approaching and gone were the signs that there had been three teams at the camp and not just one. Below Naruto was starting to put the plan in motion, and with him five clones. Two took the appearance of Sakura and Sasuke, and later three would make an appearance in the guise of Rock Lee, Hyuuga Neji, and Tenten. Sakura had wondered why the girl had not given a last name, but her first was strange enough that it might be just the custom from where her family was from.

Tenten was a name that Sakura had filed away in the recesses of her memory for future contemplation. The girl was a weapons mistress she had learned, and was skilled in the use of all ninja weapons plus a few that were not. A weapon mistress that might know more about the lily knives that Sakura wielded, and perhaps a kunoichi that might know where she could get more made. There were plenty still from the cache that she had claimed, but she had already lost one.

"Sakura-san, where did you learn that weapon technique?" Tenten's voice jolted Sakura from the introspective daze that she was in. It was a rookie mistake to let another ninja sneak up on you, even if they were from the same village.

"I learned it from a family scroll." Sakura replied in the same soft tone of voice. Not a whisper because the sibilants would carry too far, but a very low speaking voice.

"And the seals on the weapons? Are they a family technique as well?" Tenten sounded disappointed to Sakura and she could understand why.

A unique weapon technique like that, it would be worth the scroll weight in gold to Tenten. Truthfully the seals were not a family secret that had been explained in the first scroll, but with the seals Tenten was likely to develop a technique rather similar to Sakura's. Still she could not keep that from the other kunoichi after all she had been debating asking the weapon expert advice about where to get her weapon replaced.

"That is not." Sakura said with only a slight hesitation in her voice. The way the girl beamed at Sakura made her feel rather pleased. It was nice being able to help out another woman. "I could tell you how the seal works, but I can't make a new one. If you'd be willing to point me out to a good blacksmith…"

"I think that I can do that." Tenten said even as she pulled a scroll from inside her pouch. "Neji just signaled there is someone coming, and they have a Heaven scroll."

Sakura gave a slight nod in reply and clenched the control ring for her weapon tighter. The plan was fairly simple, but there was always room for error. Naruto would lure the team closer in by staging a fight between the two teams. Shikamaru with hopefully bind them all with his Kagemane and then the other teams would swoop in to disable them. Neji would be playing a key role as his ability to seal tenketsu.

It had been decided after the fight with the Oto-nin that they would not kill anyone if they could avoid it. Would not even seriously injure anyone if they could keep from doing so.

Naruto was already putting his part of the plan into action. Sakura smiled faintly at that. He had a fairly prominent role in planning this out providing the bones of the plan that Shikamaru had fleshed out. Sakura had seen the effects of that plan and actually wanted to face Shikamaru in a fight for real. It would be a good test of her new abilities while in the released state.

Sakura realized that the genin team drawn in was one of the older Suna-nin teams as soon as they entered the clearing. She tensed as Shikimaru started working through his hand seals. This was the do or die moment, and it would only work according to plan if the ninja below did not notice the shadows suddenly racing towards them.

"Kagemane no Jutsu, success." Shikimaru said softly as he stood and lifted his arms. The three bound by his shadow mimicked his actions, and Naruto plus clones slipped into the next part of the plan. Weapons littered the forest floor rather quickly.

"Well that was almost a let down." Tenten joked lightly.

"Better a let down than to be fighting for our lives." Sakura grinned at Tenten. Sakura started to jump down to the next branch only to slip and be caught by the older kunoichi.

"Are you okay? I've taken an advanced first aid class if you want me to check you out." Tenten's offer was almost instinctive, but Sakura shook her head.

Sakura already knew what was wrong. She could feel it in her body. Yet it was already playing itself out. She had taken too many soldier pills with too little real food and far too little real sleep. The sleep she had woken from just hours ago had helped, and the cold smoked fish she had after helped even more. Still it would take time to recover from carrying two boys that weighed more apiece than she did all night long. From pushing her body to the brink of breaking, and then forcing it farther than she would normally go with the fight after.

"Just too much happened in the past few days. I still need rest." Sakura gave Tenten a faint smile and got a frown in reply.

"I should have seen it earlier. Soldier pill poisoning." Tenten pierced Sakura with a stare. Her voice was a soft murmur when she continued. "How many did you have?"

"Three." Sakura shook her head at Tenten's shocked expression. "It was necessary. A lot of things happened before your team arrived."

"We need to get you…"

Sakura cut Tenten off. "I'll be fine. Most of the toxins have already been cleared. I'll just be a little shaky for a couple more days."

Sakura could see that Tenten did not believe her, but that was okay. It was better to be underestimated than overestimated in a fight. The latter just got you dead fast. Sakura looked down at Naruto and smirked. Naruto had shown her that.

By the time she said her last words they had gathered around the three captured and rapidly bound Suna-nin. All of the Konoha genin turned their attention to Sakura and looked at her.

"What type of things happened to you guys?" Tenten asked not willing to let it go, and most of the other genin gave a nod, including Sasuke.

"Naruto told us some of it, but from what he said he was knocked out early in the fight." Shikamaru said as they finished tying the other genin team up. Neji was efficiently stripping all three of various weapons and supplies. Sakura gave a sigh and jerked her head at the bound trio.

"I'll tell you once we get away from these three and are in the clear." Sakura was not looking forward to this discussion. She glanced at Ino who was looking at her in a mixture of anger and contemplation. Not going to like this at all.

&&&&&

"After Orochimaru bit Sasuke he just left." Sakura said looking around the small smokeless campfire. There was more fish and they would have to abandon the camp soon, but it was good to get some more rest and more food into her system. "I could not wake my teammates so I carried them out to safety set up camp, and the rest you know."

"The rest we don't know." Tenten stated bluntly glaring at Sakura. "Three soldier pills?"

There was silence in the small clearing as everyone stared at Sakura. She gave a sigh knowing that this was not going to go away unless she explained herself. Sakura really did not want to do it; she did not want to talk of the desperation of that night.

"Three? Sakura…" Chouji had stopped munching on chips long enough to speak and he shook his head. "Three pills are too much even for an Akimichi."

"I didn't have much choice Chouji." Sakura groaned as she settled back against the rock serving as a seat. "The Suiren jutsu I have learned use a lot of chakra to keep active. I had to use them just to be able to carry Sasuke and Naruto to safety, and that meant using one right after the fight. Then when we were safe I couldn't just fall asleep and depend on the traps so that was another."

"And you used the third during the fight." Lee's statement sounded proud to Sakura and he beamed at her. "You wouldn't let your fires of youth dim until you had saved your team! You are truly a beautiful flower of the forest Sakura-chan!"

"Sakura was never this strong." Ino's voice cut Sakura deeply. Not because the words were not true, but because of the disbelief in Ino's voice.

It hurt to think that the person she had considered her closest friend thought that she could not get this strong. Could not believe that Sakura had been able to do all of the things she said she had done. Sakura could see the disbelief in Ino's eyes, and with it more than a little fear.

"Believe it." Naruto's voice startled Sakura as he growled from his seat by the fire. "Sakura had been training to exhaustion for the past week. She pushed herself and me as hard as we could take it. Why?"

Sakura watched her blonde teammate look down at the ground his hands clenching into fists. She wondered why this was so hard for him. Naruto, as bad of a student as he had been, had always been a good fighter. He had always been able to pick himself up after he got knocked down and continue on.

"She did it because we were weak." Naruto said his voice barely above a whisper. His eyes were a vibrant blue when he looked up brightened by the anger that seethed in his voice. "We were weak. When we were on the mission to Wave Country we almost died. We weren't ready to be ninja, none of us, not even Sasuke."

"Hn."

Sakura saw Ino shocked into silence by Sasuke's seeming acceptance of the statement. He only looked away from Naruto and did not bother to try and protest the blonde's statement. Sakura gave a nod and met Naruto's eyes. Jade met sapphire and locked.

"I was the weakest." Sakura shook her head as she saw that Naruto was going to protest that. Sakura sounded tired even to herself as she continued. "I could not do anything to help on that mission, but to stand back and hope that Naruto and Sasuke would somehow be able to make things right. They were hurt because of my weakness, but no more. I made myself strong."

"Hn. By almost killing yourself." Sasuke's words were a shock to the group and nobody missed it as his hand came up to rub over his neck where the bit occurred. Where the strange tattoo like seal was. "Was it worth it?"

"I defeated you in a spar didn't I, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura didn't try to hold back the mocking tone in her voice that came when she said his name. He would respect her; she would make him respect her.

"No way!" Ino's shocked gasp summed things up for most of the people around the fire Sakura could tell. Naruto's nod and Sasuke's glare proved it was right though.

"We still need another scroll." Neji interrupted. Sakura could tell his patience was wearing thin, and if it were not for the fact that his team already had theirs he would leave. He had given his word though, and for some reason the Hyuuga seemed reluctant to go back on it.

"And we don't have much time." Tenten's words were truthful if worrying.

Sakura counted silently the days that they had been in the forest. The third was drawing to a close now. They had two more days before the test was over with and they needed to be in the tower to continue. Two days to find another scroll.

"There should be teams nearer to the tower trying to eliminate additional competition." Sakura was not entirely pleased with the prospect of taking on what were probably the more powerful teams. Teams that were trying to take out additional competition before they turned in their scrolls.

"Troublesome." Shikamaru was at his best blunt. "It is the best chance to get another Heaven scroll. We should attack tonight, and then move immediately to the tower."

"Why?" Naruto was clueless as ever and Sakura resisted the urge to smack the back of his head.

"With Neji's eyes we'll be able to find a team at night when they only have a single member on lookout." Tenten clarified and Shikamaru gave a nod.

"I won't be able to use my family jutsu at night, but it still gives us the advantage." Shikamaru looked around the small fire. "If we are able to get it early enough, a quick sprint to the tower will let us gather strength before the finals."

"Hn." Sasuke shook his head. "If we are going to do that we should move now while there is still light, and find a target. If we attack a few hours into the first shift."

"Their guards will be down." Ino completed the thought tired of being left out.

Sakura added her own affirmative to the general rumble around them, but stayed seated as the others started to gather up gear in readiness to leave. Naruto had confiscated most of what she was carrying anyways, and truthfully she did not really feel up to moving quickly right now.

"Sakura." Sakura looked up and was suddenly locked in Ino's pale blue pupil-less gaze. "Things are different with you, and it isn't just Sasuke."

_Where was the 'kun'?_ Sakura thought for a moment trying to jerk her mind back into thinking order. She needed sleep bad, but at the current rate it would not be coming anytime soon. This was worse than the training exercise Kakashi made them do once that kept them up all night.

"Yeah." Sakura said as she rubbed her face tiredly. "Some of it is just well being around Naruto and Sasuke so much. Some of it is just being so damned tired right now. Most of it is side-effects from the base Suiren jutsu."

"I heard Asuma-sensei, Kakashi-sensei, and Kurenai-sensei talking about that while we were celebrating a missing at the BBQ place. They said, they said you could have died using that jutsu Sakura." Ino stared at Sakura when she nodded. "Why? Why would you go that far?"

"We… it was like I said Ino we almost died in Wave. All I did was freeze and watch while Sasuke, and Naruto they were hurt so bad. I knew that if it had been you, if it had been Shikamaru and Chouji you would have done something." Sakura fell silent as she thought back to that day. It was the day that had made her change herself. "Haku died to save Zabuza. He took Kakashi's fist right through his chest, and he was only a couple years older than us Ino."

"So what you cooked up some crazy plan to steal some family jutsu?"

"My grandmother was a Suiren Ino. She wasn't a ninja, but she passed the blood on to me. Those jutsu are mine." Sakura's voice hardened as she started down Ino. It had been her choice, and so far it was working. There were drawbacks, but it was working. "So yeah, I almost killed myself with a crazy genjutsu. So I lost my subconscious. So I don't dream at night anymore. So I don't care if Sasuke does anything more than respect me. So I might not get you back as a friend again."

Sakura's voice fell soft at those last words. She groaned and pushed herself to her feet still feeling as if she had gone two hours sparring Kakashi. The group was ready to move and Sakura jumped into the trees landing lightly. A second later Ino landed next to her.

"Don't think you're getting off that easily Forehead. We're going to talk when we get to the tower."

Sakura smiled as she leaped towards the next branch. Things might not be perfect still but there was hope for better in the future.

&&&&&

Sasuke glowered at the camp before them. He could not believe that these genin were actually testing for chuunin or that they were as old as they were. The fire was small yes, and it might have been hidden well in its pit from ground level approaches. The flame was visible for nearly forever in the branches of even the thick forest though. They had caught sight of the flickering flame long before they had closed enough for Neji to see who was there with the Byakugan.

The Kusa-nin was at least facing away from the fire to save his night vision. That much showed he had some shinobi blood in him. Traps surrounded the camp but there was nothing to stop a tree bound enemy. Sasuke gave a silent sigh and went back to studying the camp while pushing chakra into his eyes to activate his Sharingan. It had advanced again in the fight against Orochimaru, and now the faint chakra signatures of explosive tags in the traps glowed softly in the night.

He still needed to unlock another level before he could actually copy jutsu. Weak, he was still far too weak. At this rate he would never catch his brother and surpass him. At this rate he would barely be able to keep ahead of the dobe and Sakura. He glared at the pink-haired kunoichi in question. She had to go and find those scrolls. She had to get stronger, and she had to start training with Naruto. They were advancing so quickly, they had already eaten up most of the lead he had on them.

Training with them was out of the question though. Sasuke was an Uchiha, and Uchiha were the elite. They didn't need help from the dead last and some kunoichi that up to a week ago only had brains working for her.

If only he could figure out the secret of how they were getting strong so quickly. He watched them all the time with his Sharingan, and yet he was not able to predict their actions any better in spars. He had redoubled his afternoon training inside the compound. Sasuke did more laps, more strength training, and on top of it all more kata.

He was staying ahead in taijutsu. After that initial loss to Sakura he had not made the same mistake against her again. Still Sasuke was only just staying ahead of them in speed and strength and he had the suspicious feeling that they were catching up to him with ninjutsu. Their Kawarimi and Bunshin were getting very good, and both could now do them most of the time without the hand seals.

Sasuke grimaced grinding his teeth together. This test would do it for him though. Once he made chuunin then he didn't have to stay in the team. He could ask for reassignment as an individual chuunin. That meant more combat, higher ranked missions, and once he unlocked the last stage of his Sharingan more jutsu to copy.

Until then he would just have to be patient.

There was a whisper of sound as someone landed on the branch next to him. Sasuke turned his head slightly to catch sight of Shikamaru next to him. It was strange seeing the normally lazy genin moving so actively while on a mission.

"We're going as soon as the owl hoots thrice. You'll take the guard, no flashy ninjutsu. Just take him down, and try not to injure him too badly." Shikamaru looked at Sasuke and continued in a low voice. "Lee and Neji are going to go in with you, the rest of us are acting as backup."

"Naruto's not going to like this." Sasuke smirked as he looked down below. It was another test of his ability. His smile grew feral.

"Naruto is watching another group nearby. We think they might have noticed us." Shikamaru shook his head. "This is too troublesome. We need to get the scroll quickly and make a dash for the tower."

"Two groups? We should still be able to take them." Sasuke said in a low voice as he continued to watch Shikamaru and the camp with his peripheral vision.

"It is best not to chance it. Sakura's only getting weaker as the night goes on, and my group is almost useless in the dark."

Sasuke had to admit that the lazy genin was right. Six on five would not be good numbers, and Lee was still a little off balance from the sound attack the day before. He gave a nod and turned his eyes back to the guard. No fancy jutsu, well he could do that. The Sharingan Soufuusha Sannotachi would work perfectly in this situation.

The fight, if it could even be called that, was rather anti-climatic. Upon hearing the 'owl' hoot in the distance Sasuke fired off the three shuriken and rapidly had his target trussed up. He had pulled the ninja a bit hard into the tree, but the Kusa-nin's face and skull cushioned the blow nicely. When he woke up tomorrow he'd probably be wondering what freight wagon hit him. Sasuke smirked a bit as he finished twisting up the wire to hold him in place.

"We need to move fast." A heavily panting Shikamaru interrupted Sasuke's gloating. "We've been found out by the other group. Naruto's got a bunch of clones keeping them busy, but these guys are good. Sasuke you take the Heaven scroll here, everyone meet up at the tower."

Sasuke hated running from a fight. But given the sheer amount of ninjutsu that was being blasted around the forest to their left running was a good idea. It looked like there was another group of genin that were not necessarily supposed to be that rank running around. Sasuke glowered at the glowing bit of forest as he followed along after the others. People were sandbagging the tournament; why would they do that?

&&&&&

Naruto gave a soft sigh of contentment from his bedroll in the tower. They were not the first team in, and he doubted they would be the last. There was a team of Suna-nin that had arrived the first day. Everyone swung a wide berth around the team. Team 8 had arrived and Naruto had spoken with them a little bit, and learned why everyone swung a wide berth around the Suna-nin. That Gaara guy was just scary if he went around squeezing people into a pulp.

Team 7, Team 9, and Team 10 rounded out the teams that had finished so far. There was only a day left, and the sounds of combat from outside the tower were rising to a fever pitch. Naruto was glad that his team had gotten here relatively early. You had to spend 5 days in the forest, but you didn't have to be **in** the forest for all of them. The tower was much nice, and it had running water for baths and food.

It sucked that he was not able to train though. Well not any training that actually counted for much. Stamina training and kata he could do but he was already a stamina freak, everyone knew that, and he sucked at kata. Well he was sucking less now given that Sakura made him go through the right forms every time they trained. Still a week of training could not override three years of bad habit.

Naruto was good at listening in on things that were said in his presence but not to him. There were whispers among the other teams that the next stage was going to pit them in a series of one on one fights. Those fights concerned him. Yeah, outside of the redheaded Suna-nin he thought he could take on everyone else. Even Sasuke or that Neji guy with enough Bunshin would go down, but a series of fights would do him in. He did not have any trump cards outside of two Katon ninjutsu and his Kage Bunshin.

Chuunin. For the first time Naruto wondered if he was ready for the rank. If he had not seen the way the other teams interacted he would have answered yes. Seeing the difference between Team 8 and Team 10 and comparing them to his own, now he was uncertain.

Shikamaru deserved the rank, Naruto decided. He acted like Iruka-sensei did. He was serious and always on the lookout for the people on his squad. Thinking ahead of how to deal with situations and taking steps to minimize risk.

Sakura deserved it as well. Sasuke, well Naruto still thought that the Uchiha was too stuck up and power obsessed to deserve the rank. Lee would probably be a good chuunin, and Tenten she looked out for her squad and that was key. Neji well he was a lot like Sasuke. Naruto figured if you put them in a dark room they wouldn't know they weren't brothers. They were both dark and brooding.

Naruto though he knew what he had to do, and he just did not know if he could do it or was doing it. Put the team first. He groaned as he rolled over on his makeshift bed. That meant not pushing Sasuke-teme's buttons, and helping him out if Naruto could. It would be a pain in the ass.

"Naruto." Sakura's soft voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

"Sakura, you're looking better." Naruto looked at her making sure she was feeling better as well. There was none of the tightness in her body that indicated pain, and she was much more relaxed. Her eyes had finally lost that sunken look of too little sleep.

"Yeah I feel better too. It is a wonder what a good night's sleep and a couple meals will do." Sakura paused to look around the room and leaned closer to Naruto speaking in a softer tone so as not to be overheard. "I've been talking with Shikamaru. He says that in the past the third stage never had more than twelve competitors set up in a single elimination tournament. How many do we have now?"

"Uh, more than twelve?" Naruto looked around the room. There were already fifteen genin in the room. No, make that eighteen as an older group of Konoha-nin was coming in the door now.

"Yeah, I bet they have an elimination contest. They match up either teams or individual genin and have them fight it out to drop the numbers down." Sakura looked around the area again and continued. "We can't be sure we won't be fighting someone from our own team, but no matter who we fight…"

"We need to hold something back." Naruto finished as he interrupted her. "If you get that Gaara kid just forfeit."

"You heard then?" Sakura asked her eyes flicking over to him. Naruto gave her a nod in reply. If he had to fight Gaara he would, but Kiba had been afraid of what happened. It took a lot to scare the Inuzuka that badly.

"Kiba told me. If he is that strong it'd be like fighting that snake bastard again." Naruto looked up at Sakura and frowned. "If I had to fight him to protect you or Sasuke I would, but to just fight him for chuunin? I don't know if it is worth it."

"It isn't. Not when all we're loosing is six months until the next exam." Sakura reached out to squeeze his shoulder lightly, which strangely enough brought a smile back to Naruto's face. "Remember, lead with your Kage Bunshin. Learn from them."

"Heh, like you need to remind me." Naruto gave Sakura a foxy grin before he looked at where a group of ninja was coming in the door just in the nick of time it seemed.


End file.
